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NTT Com to Launch New Enterprise Cloud

TOKYO, June 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) announced on June 11 the world's first globally seamless enterprise cloud service to incorporate OpenFlow network virtualization technology for networks built within and between data centers, which will launch on June 29. The service is initially provided via NTT Com data centers in Japan and Hong Kong, followed by data centers in the United States (two locations), the United Kingdom and Singapore in December and in Australia, Malaysia and Thailand in March 2013.

NTT Com's new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering, Enterprise Cloud, provides global cloud resources that enterprise customers can easily control and manage to optimize their ICT costs and support the global expansion of corporate operations.

Many multinational enterprises with growing global operations are struggling with long lead times to expand and modify their ICT systems, which can delay their response to rapid changes in the market. NTT Com helps enterprises overcome this problem by providing them with flexible cloud services via which system changes can be performed automatically using virtualized servers and networks, and a convenient customer portal.

Primary features of the new Enterprise Cloud service include the following:

For details about services and fee structures, please visit http://www.ntt.com/bhec_e.

NTT Com, under its Global Cloud Vision announced in October 2011, is leveraging strengths as a telecom operator to provide total ICT outsourcing services, from networks and data centers to applications, all on a seamless, end-to-end, one-stop basis, to meet customer needs for cloud-based ICT systems.

About NTT Communications Corporation Please visit http://www.ntt.com/index-e.html

Further information: http://www.twitter.com/nttcom http://www.facebook.com/nttcomtv

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Does Larry believe in Oracle's middle-rung cloud?

Summary: You cant fault Oracle for consistency in its cloud messaging, going back five years and more. But does CEO Larry Ellison still have his heart in it?

With this weeks announcement of Oracle Cloud, the vendor has finally reached the halfway stage in the journey that former company president Charles Phillips outlined to me at Oracle OpenWorld five years ago. Oracle was helping its customers take stair-steps to on-demand, Phillips told me then. Five years later, Oracle has finally managed to climb halfway up the ladder. Lets hope the rest of the ascent will be faster.

Unfortunately, today Oracle remains stuck at the middle rung with its stubborn insistence on dedicating individual database instances and sometimes entire application stacks to individual customers. These dilutions of the multi-tenant ideal serve the database vendors self-interest, because it gets to sell more licenses, but in cloud terms its half-baked. Interestingly, the arguments in favor of this approach have not advanced since Phillips conversation with me back in 2007. He even used the same word, co-mingling, that Ellison used this week to imply that full-stack multi-tenancy is somehow less safe than confining customers to separate databases or servers.

In one of my frequent displays of inadvertent clairvoyance, this is a line of argument I already dealt with last week, but since its been trotted out again, Ill reiterate what I said then:

Do you worry about your data co-mingling with others when the packets pass through the networks routers? You know that the headers on the packets make sure that your data wont accidentally go to someone elses endpoint. Cloud vendors use exactly the same logical separation to keep your data from co-mingling with anyone elses. The fact that it may be stored on the same disk or go through the same processor chip is as irrelevant as worrying about sending your physical mail through the same postal system as your competitors.

Recommending single tenancy as a way of keeping your data safe from co-mingling in a cloud environment is akin to recommending abstinence as a means of avoiding teenage pregnancies. Its somewhat old-fashioned given the better targeted methods of protection available today; but worse than that its doomed to failure because it ignores the realities of how the world works. In a cloud environment (even Oracle Cloud), co-mingling is the norm and your data is going to run through the same cables, routers and management servers as everyone elses even if it resides on separate databases. Your employees logins are going to be co-mingling with those of partners, customers and suppliers that they collaborate with as part of their day-to-day projects. Youre going to need a more sophisticated form of security than merely cloistering your data in a dedicated instance.

But at least Oracle has been consistent in its messaging, not merely five years back but all the way back to 1999, when it launched its Business OnLine application hosting operation (later renamed Oracle OnDemand). My report of the New York launch is no longer online, but according to my archive copy, Ellison then predicted, The software business is on its way to becoming a service business If you dont understand this [as a software vendor], youre going to be in a lot of trouble.

Given that background and my conversation with Phillips five years ago, Im more inclined than some of my analyst colleagues to give credence to Ellisons claim this week that Oracle Cloud is the result of a seven-year development project. Back in 1999, Jonathan Lee, the founding CEO of Corio, one of the earliest ASPs or application service providers, was warning that vendors like Oracle would have to fundamentally rearchitect their products to survive the shift online. Project Fusion had many objectives, of course, and presenting it as primarily focused on a cloud future is a substantial reslanting of history. But one of its benefits was the implementation of a service-oriented application platform that is capable of operating in a cloud environment far more efficiently that what went before. Indeed, looking at the architecture slide of Oracle Cloud presented this week, the main difference I can see from slides of the Business OnLine and Oracle OnDemand architectures ten years back is that the applications have become services a prerequisite for the transformation Lee had been calling for.

The problem for Oracle Cloud is that the majority of the vendors customers still want to host their applications on-premise and therefore the Fusion applications can never be tuned to operate efficiently as massively scalable multi-tenant instances. As pureply cloud providers gain the upper hand, that will put the product set at a massive competitive disadvantage. But thats for the future. For now, in view of the far higher license revenues that Oracle can achieve so long as its customers are confined to single-tenant instances, there is no way Oracles president and CFO Safra Catz would allow Ellison to talk up multi-tenancy even if he wanted to. So instead hell continue to trot out the co-mingling claptrap and all the other received wisdoms that enterprise IT buyers continue to lap up because neither do they want the disruption that a full embrace of cloud would cause their own empires.

As a majority owner of NetSuite and a significant minor investor in Salesforce.com, Ellison has hedged his personal bets on cloud in any case. If Oracle can remain plump on the ingrained buying habits of dyed-in-the-wool CIOs by continuing to sell them on-premise implementations and single-tenancy cloud, hes merely discharging his fiduciary duty as Oracles CEO in encouraging them to do so. Why should he care? Perhaps in his heart, though, hes irritated at the shortcomings of Oracles middle-rung cloud and thats why his claims of Oracle superiority are starting to lose their edge.

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Ingram Floats More Cloud

Having witnessed the soaring demand for cloud computing and eagerness to transform into cloud infrastructure, Ingram Micro Inc. (IM) is increasing focus on cloud offerings. This week, we noticed some new developments within Ingrams portfolio.

In its recently held Cloud Summit, an annual partner program, Ingrams North America Services Division announced a bunch of new cloud-based product and service offerings. With these new products, Ingrams Cloud Marketplace (a one-stop shop for cloud offerings from various vendors) can now offer more than 100 solutions from 40 various technology vendors across North America. The new products and services will be made available to all channel partners within a month. The offerings include those from tech heavy-weights Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM).

The addition of Amazon.coms Web-services will be beneficial for Ingram, since the online retailer, with its strong base in North America, provides access to technology infrastructure that developers can use to enable various types of virtual businesses.

Amazon will provide Ingrams customers with two services, namely Amazon Simple Storage Service and AWS Storage Gateway. These two services are expected to provide customers with fast, cheap and secured data storage and retrieval.

On the other hand, Ingram will resell Salesforce.coms Force.com platform. This platform-as-a-service helps in the development of multi-tenant applications to be run on servers.

Ingram is one of the biggest players in the IT distribution business. The companys geographical diversity makes it a logical choice for manufacturers seeking to increase international exposure. The channel partners also get exposure to various technology providers offerings under one roof. Moreover, Ingrams continuous product enhancement and partner addition activities will keep it ahead of peers such as Avnet Inc. (AVT), Arrow Electronics Inc. (ARW) and Tech Data Corp. (TECD).

We find Ingram Micros first quarter results impressive as the bottom line was well ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company has provided a positive but cautious second quarter guidance. But we believe that support from its Australian venture and the improving IT spending trend will help Ingram post better results ahead.

We remain fairly optimistic about Ingram Micros strategic relationship with network giant Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR), as well as tech giants such as Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ), IBM Corp. (IBM) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT).

The companys growing SMB exposure and improving profitability is encouraging, but its significant European exposure and debt burden are concerns.

Currently, Ingram Micro has a Zacks #3 Rank, implying a short-term Hold rating.

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New Cloud Offering from HP

Cloud computing has emerged as a key focus area for all the information technology companies across the globe, and Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ) is no exception. The company has recently announced a new cloud computing solution in a bid to revamp its business.

The new cloud-based service enables clients to deploy private, public and managed clouds in a traditional information technology atmosphere, helps address the business needs of several existing and prospective clients and is compatible with all the latest technologies used by various companies.

The new offering from the technology major is expected to help the airline industry to develop an integrated platform for airline reservations and travel. Moreover, the Cloud bursting capabilities help external clients to access the blocks of external cloud capacity through the HP Cloud System, Amazon Web Services and Savvis. It is also expected to help in arranging new tools to manage technology across various cloud environments. The new offering includes a printing system that enables driverless printing from mobile devices.

The demand for a reliable cloud solution has increased in recent times with enterprises thinking seriously about the cloud option. The development and use of public clouds is not an easy process. This is where HP steps in as a service provider and offers its public cloud that small telecom providers can resell.

The recent acquisition of Autonomy was a step in this direction as its private cloud is expected to be fully utilized by HP. The Autonomy private cloud surpassed more than 50 petabytes of Web content, video, email and multimedia data and is spread across 6,500 servers at 14 global data centers. The Autonomy cloud also facilitates automatic data recognition architecture.

Although Hewlett Packard continues to march ahead with its cloud strategy, the ensuing courtroom battle with long-time partner Oracle Corp. (ORCL) is likely to weigh on investor sentiment. Though lawsuits encircling patent infringements and violation of contract terms are common in the tech sector, we think that the legal battle between these two giants will be a major issue.

With arguments going both for and against the company, the result of the trial is highly uncertain. In the meantime, its server business will continue to take a beating.

Hewlett-Packards second quarter 2012 earnings per share exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate, but both earnings and revenues declined on a year-over-year basis. Results were negatively impacted by exchange rate fluctuations, greater mix of low-margin products and competitive pricing in its hardware business. Its recently-announced restructuring initiative is encouraging however and should improve margins going forward.

However, HP continues to see challenges in its printer business. Also, margins in the services business are likely to remain weak this year and the macroeconomic trends as well as the competitive pressure remain headwinds.

Currently, HP has a Zacks Rank #3, implying a short-term Hold rating.

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CloudReplica Extends Its Cloud Leadership With Virtual-Move(TM) for Customers Requiring Data Protection and Access …

HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwire -06/07/12)- CloudReplica, the leading provider of Business Continuity as-a-Service, announced a new service that protects or runs a customer's server during an office relocation. Many customers are left to worry about how to protect their data if an accident occurs. Even if there isn't an accident, customers may encounter a challenge at the destination like inadequate power, no network access, or structural challenges that prevents reinstallation of servers.

In an article for Entrepreneur.com magazine, relocation expert Luigi Salvaneschi suggests "...an entrepreneur must figure in the cost of business interruption. Almost inevitably, a business's productivity will be reduced for a period of days or even weeks after a move."

"Our business has always been about shattering those types of common beliefs and questioning the status quo," says Rich Bruklis, Vice President of Marketing at CloudReplica. "This is the 21st Century. Your data and servers should be available no matter what is going on -- disaster, failure, or relocation. Our new Virtual-Move service does exactly that -- allows you to run your applications even when your servers are riding down the highway in the back of a moving truck."

Traditionally, companies create their own protection scheme in preparation for relocation with disk or tape backup. While backup does some level of protection, today's servers have a large amount of integration consisting of operating systems, operating systems patches, drivers, applications, application patches, and of course, data. Servers that are several years old and properly maintained have had dozens or hundreds of patches applied. If a server has a major issue, many companies would be left wondering what to do because backup does not help when there are days of server recreation work to be done.

"Imagine you are holding an external hard drive in your hands while looking at a damaged server that isn't powering up. What do you do? Fix the server and perform about a dozen critical integration steps before trying to restore data," added Rich. "So many of our customers have had multiple IT people working on those servers over the years, most would have no idea how to bring the server back. Virtual-Move solves that problem by cloning the entire server and capturing all of the integration work done on the server over the years."

Customers will have the choice of two Virtual-Move services. Virtual-Move, Standard Edition will make an exact copy of a customer's server prior to relocation. Standard Edition captures all the data, applications, and integration work to serve as data insurance for the relocation. In the event of a server mishap, a new or the repaired server can be re-imaged to function like the original server.

Virtual-Move Advanced Edition extends the functionality of Standard Edition by enabling server access during the relocation. Customers can run their applications and access data while the relocation is occurring. For example, if the office staff wanted to send email during the move, they would select Virtual-Move Standard Edition to protect their Exchange email servers and Virtual-Move Advanced Edition to run Exchange.

Kevin Crofoot, Vice President of Sales at KCS Office Moving, a leading corporate relocation company adds, "Relocation companies have always offered insurance on hardware damage but we have never had an easy, secure option for data until now. Virtual-Move complements the hardware insurance because in reality, the data is more important than the hardware. Hardware can be replaced. Data cannot. This type of offering is invaluable to our relocation customers."

CloudReplica's Virtual-Move service will be sold by KCS Office Moving and their partners throughout the US. Virtual-Move, Standard Edition is priced at $150 per server and is available immediately. Virtual-Move, Advanced Edition is a $200 add-on service to Standard Edition. Customers can select a mix of Standard and Advanced Editions on their servers.

About KCS Office Moving

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ScaleXtreme Announces Support for Linux/Windows Server on Windows Azure Public Cloud IaaS

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ScaleXtreme, a leading provider of cloud and server management products, announced full support for Windows Azure Virtual Machines to launch, monitor, manage and patch Windows Server and Linux machines in Windows Azure. Windows Azure customers can sign up for free or paid accounts and instantly start managing their Windows Azure-based servers with ScaleXtreme.

ScaleXtreme worked with Microsoft early on to ensure immediate interoperability for our customers, said ScaleXtreme CEO Nand Mulchandani. Microsofts entry into the IaaS business is going to have a big impact on the technology industry and will be an enormous windfall for public cloud users. Were pleased to help customers begin benefiting immediately from Microsofts new Windows Azure virtual machine functionality.

ScaleXtreme provides a single view, unifying the management of an organizations server environment spanning private and public cloud machines, different public cloud providers running on any virtualization platform, and even physical servers. It works with Windows Server and a variety of Linux-based operating systems and helps users rapidly scale server deployments using templates. ScaleXtreme recently announced a number of additional features, including the industrys only cloud cost-management tools, which enable IT professionals to gain visibility into cloud provider costs, establish role-based budgets and prevent the launch of unauthorized cloud machines.

We are excited to have ScaleXtreme work with Windows Azure, says Mark Miller, director, Windows Azure Marketing, at Microsoft. ScaleXtremes products can give customers flexibility to manage both on-premise Windows Server infrastructure and public cloud Windows Azure systems through a single interface.

ScaleXtremes products also come equipped with cloud-based patch management automation, which provides customers the ability to schedule, deploy and automate patches for multiple machines, as well as the on-the-go iPhone application that gives system administrators a unified view of their cloud instances through a single, simple interface.

Sign up for ScaleXtreme now: http://www.scalextreme.com/partners/windows-azure

About ScaleXtreme

ScaleXtreme provides powerful, cloud-based server automation products for the modern distributed data center. Built from the ground up to be simple, scalable and social, IT gets a single unified automation platform to build and control physical, virtual and public cloud servers. For more information, visit http://www.scalextreme.com.

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Strategy Analytics: Mobile Operators Can Monetize the Cloud with Three Network Services

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Mobile Operator Cloud Services are being upstaged by OTT service platform vendors like Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com and Microsoft but operators can respond to such challenges and recapture value with real time services, always connected devices and connectivity management. In a new report from the Strategy Analytics Wireless Operator Strategies, Three Ways Mobile Operators Can Monetize Cloud Service Value, Strategy Analytics identifies three key areas where mobile operators can capture value in Cloud networks.

Below are three essential concepts for mobile operators, along with names of leading vendor that can provide requisite solutions for each service.

Mobile operators should seize the opportunity to enhance cloud-based services with open APIs and flexible, scalable platforms in the network to complement as well as compete with innovative, fast moving OTT players, commented Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, Director Mobile Broadband Opportunities.

Sue Rudd Director Service Provider Analysis, added, All three opportunities are differentiated by mobile the operators unique networking knowledge. Cloud phones also lower device component costs and processing requirements, exploit coming HTML5 and deliver superior perceived functionality by making a smart network in place of a smart phone. By virtualizing network resources operators can create a Network as a Service (NaaS) option to attract premier developers. Mobile operators can leverage these new service models to capture value from the cloud.

About Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics, Inc. provides timely and actionable market intelligence focused on opportunities and disruptive forces in the areas of Broadband Connected Home and Mobile Broadband services. http://www.strategyanalytics.com

Tags: Strategy Analytics, Amazon, Software.com, Microsoft, Apple, Siri, Google, Deutsche Telekom, Teliasonera, Skype, Alcatel-Lucent, ConteXtream, Metaswitch, Mavenir, Radisys, Taqua, Nokia, Huawei, Motorola Mobility

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Dimension Data To Offer Private Cloud Productivity Solutions

NEW YORK, June 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Dimension Data, the global specialist IT solutions and services provider, today announced it will offer Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync 2010 cloud services hosted in its managed private cloud environment. Part of its Cloud Services portfolio, and based upon Dimension Data's Managed Cloud Platform (MCP), enterprises will realize the benefits of Microsoft Corp.'s business productivity capabilities while reducing the cost and risk of managing the underlying infrastructure and applications. Dimension Data's approach provides a customizable and secure managed private cloud solution that maintains data sovereignty and control. Initially available in South Africa in calendar Q3 2012, Dimension Data intends to offer the service in an additional 10 countries and expand availability based on client demand.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120402/NE80686LOGO )

"Dimension Data has more than 10 years of experience deploying on-premise Exchange, SharePoint and Lync solutions for clients globally, and has migrated more than one million end users to public cloud business productivity solutions," said Steve Nola, CEO of Dimension Data's Cloud Business Unit. "Our strong expertise in tailoring Microsoft solutions to our clients' needs provides the assurance that their operations are in good hands."

The economics and efficiency benefits of moving messaging, collaboration and unified communication technologies to the cloud are appealing to many enterprises; however, existing public cloud environments can fail to satisfy key business requirements. Dimension Data's new offering is part of its Cloud Services strategy announced earlier in the year. Based upon Microsoft productivity solutions, it provides a private, single-tenant cloud environment hosted in Dimension Data's data centers throughout the world, or on the client's premises. The managed offering provides enterprises with the level of customization, flexibility and control needed to address unique business requirements.

"By offering our clients managed productivity solutions in a private cloud environment, Dimension Data is helping remove the barriers that have previously inhibited some organizations from placing key business services in the cloud," said Peter Menadue, general manager of Microsoft solutions at Dimension Data. "By basing this offering on our Managed Cloud Platform, Dimension Data is enabling enterprises around the globe to take a key step in their journey to the cloud with the security, compliance and customization assurances they require."

"Enterprises and government organizations will benefit from Dimension Data-hosted productivity solutions," said Mark Hill, vice president, enterprise partner group, Microsoft Corp. "As one of our most innovative alliances, Dimension Data has the depth of experience to offer customers flexible cloud solutions based on Microsoft technologies that best meet their organizational needs."

Maximizing existing investments in technology is a key consideration for enterprises as they transition to the cloud. Organizations with Microsoft's Enterprise Agreements can take advantage of License Mobility through the Software Assurance option to repurpose their SharePoint 2010, Exchange Server 2010 and Lync 2010 licenses. Dimension Data will take advantage of this licensing option so that their clients can move to the cloud on their own schedule, without waiting for existing agreements to expire or purchasing duplicate licenses.

Dimension Data's cloud services platform, built on Windows Server and Microsoft System Center, is fully managed and allows for organizations to maintain the control they need to perform routine tasks through a self-service portal for client administration. Long-standing vendor relationships and multi-vendor management capabilities position Dimension Data to support and manage complex systems integration obstacles that arise.

Dimension Data Managed Cloud Platform (MCP)

Dimension Data's Cloud Services are delivered on the company's Managed Cloud Platform (MCP), a fully-managed cloud delivery platform. Hosted within a Dimension Data or client data center, the MCP is comprised of cloud infrastructure (servers, storage, networking, virtualization and operating system software) and Dimension Data CloudControl, a cloud management system that provides operational control and automation of cloud resource provisioning, orchestration, administration, and billing. The MCP can be accessed via a web-based user interface or REST-based application interface (API), enabling integration of the platform with third-party cloud or enterprise system management software. Private MCPs can be deployed in client data centers across more than 100 countries. Dimension Data's public cloud services can be accessed globally via Dimension Data Public MCPs in San Jose, CA and Ashburn, VA, United States; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Sydney, Australia and Johannesburg, South Africa. For more information on the services, please visit: http://www.dimensiondata.com/cloud.

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