Oracle acquires Xsigo, Netflix Chaos Monkey, Cloud drives innovation. And more...

Cloud News

• Oracle announced that it has signed a deal to acquire Xsigo Systems, a company that specializes in software defined networking, according to this Computerworld article. Oracle plans to combine Xsigo's tools with its Oracle VM server virtualization technology.
• Amazon announced Provisioned IOPS (Input Output Per Second) which can reach up to 10,000 IOPS for use with large, big data analytics jobs and high transactional solutions such as SAP, according to this GigaOM article. You can read more about the offering and watch a video on the AWS blog.
• Netflix has open sourced Chaos Monkey, code that it uses to test what will happen to cloud-hosted applications when virtual servers go down unexpectedly, according to this GigaOM article. Netflix, which runs on Amazon Web Services, said that Chaos Monkey is flexible enough to run on other providers' clouds beyond AWS.
• A recent survey conducted by Business Software Alliance (BSA) and Ipsos Public Affairs determined that emerging markets are more likely to use cloud services than mature ones, according to this CloudPro article. In emerging markets, 50 percent of respondents use some kind of cloud service, but in mature markets, that figure drops to 33 percent.

Featured Content

Cloud Course: Cloud Essential Overview

A 2011 Cloud Adoption study by BitNami, Cloud.com, and Zenoss of 500 IT professionals, found that one of the biggest inhibitors to cloud computing is a lack of training. ITprenuers and CA Technologies are now offering Cloud Essentials courses where students will gain a core understanding of how to adopt, operate and govern the cloud. Sign up for a Cloud Essentials Overview course or download the web-based version of the course.

Feature article

 Stop following and start leading

By Andi Mann, CA Technologies

As technology innovation becomes ever more central to business innovation, the pressure flows onto the shoulders of today's CIO. Yet they are not being offered more resources to deliver these innovations, nor are their existing systems getting easier or cheaper to own and manage. So the modern CIO must try to meet this ever-increasing demand for innovation, despite their own ever-decreasing capacity to deliver innovation. This is the "new normal" for today's CIO - and this gap between business demand and IT capacity is only getting wider.

There is no doubt then that almost every business, from the smallest startup to the largest enterprise, will increasingly rely on cloud computing, because cloud - whether private, public, community, or hybrid - promises to close this gap. Read the full article.

Cloud Views

• @CloudCommons hosted a #CloudViews tweet chat on international cloud on Tuesday, July 31^st. You can find a list of the question and a transcript of the event on Cloud Commons.
• In the August episode of CloudViews Unplugged, Andi Mann and George Watt of CA Technologies discuss emerging cloud markets, big data, 7 common cloud challenges, cloud-based farming, Netflix Chaos Monkey, and Amazon cloud outages.
• What will cloud computing look like in 2020? In this ZDNet blog, Jack Clark uses recent data from Forbes to predict 10 ways in which cloud computing will look radically different in 2020.
• Can a solar flare knock out your cloud? In this Virtualization Review blog, Elias Khnaser details how a large solar flare could impact cloud computing.
• Do cloud computing and innovation go hand-in-hand? In this CA Innovation Central blog, Denise Dubie examines recent poll data that looks at how the cloud is driving innovation.

MSP Corner

• Businesses still have a lot of questions when it comes to cloud. In this MSPmentor blog, Mike Cullen reveals the nine questions that every MSP or CSP should anticipate.
• At the CompTIA Breakaway in Las Vegas this week, cloud will be a major topic of discussion. In this MSPmentor blog, Ted Roller discuss the sessions that cloud-interested attendees won't want to miss.

Upcoming Cloud Events

• Cloud Computing World Forum: August 22 - 23, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• VMWorld 2012: August 26-30, San Francisco, CA
• Cloud Connect: September 10-13, Chicago, IL
• Dreamforce '12: September 18-21, San Francisco, CA

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