Cloud Storm Chasers : ScaleMatrix

Gaining Momentum in the Cloud with ScaleMatrix

Robyn Herbert — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 14:05:00 GMT

It seems everyone these days is interested in cloud services. From what they hear, it improves flexibility and agility, speeds service delivery, and reduces costs. What's not to love? But while there is no denying the benefits, it's not as easy as flipping a switch. It's a complete change of mindset that needs to occur across the business and IT stakeholders. And it's an iterative process. Your whole infrastructure doesn't magically turn into "cloud" overnight.

Mark Ortenzi, CEO at cloud service provider ScaleMatrix, understands this all too well. When working with customers, he gains a deep understanding of their particular business model and develops a strategy that will evolve the customer's infrastructure at a pace they are comfortable with.

"Getting customers to understand how cloud computing works and how to take advantage of it can be very challenging. It's so fundamentally different from how business-class computing has been done in the past. We work closely with potential customers to figure out what their business model is and the biggest pain they are currently facing. We don't go in and try to convert the whole infrastructure over to cloud right away. That just won't work."

With that said, cloud may be more addictive than you think. Perhaps the real reason cloud is gaining so much popularity: once you get a taste of its benefits, you want more. At ScaleMatrix, they know that once that customer gets their first cloud project up and running, other implementations are sure to follow.

"There have been several occasions in which we installed a cloud computing grid for a company to support a particular pilot project. Everything is going really well and then, all of a sudden, we start getting warnings that they are crossing their high-availability thresholds. We call up the customer to find out what's going on... Turns out, they were so happy with the results, that they started moving over more projects without letting us know. Once customers see for themselves the value cloud can deliver, it's not long before they want to use it more."

Watch this short video to learn more about ScaleMatrix and how they are helping to transform their customer's infrastructures. And visit the Cloud Luminaries site for more on their story and other organizations who are paving the way in cloud.

Cloud Ecosystem Members Create a Win-Win-Win for Disaster Prevention

Jeffrey Abbott — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:38:00 GMT

Redundancy is one of those necessary evils. It's necessary in the modern world for not-so-uncommon scenarios of unplanned, and often unavoidable circumstances. For example, I've been waiting for my new DSLR camera from Nikon for two years and counting. But there were tragic natural and unnatural disasters in Japan (tsunami and nuclear meltdown). Among countless bigger issues, it halted development, production and delivery of my camera to my home in Boston (yes, I got off easy). Nikon then turned to its backup plan... Thailand. Then, catastrophic floods dealt another major blow to my 36.3MP camera. (Before sending me hate mail... I know that the losses, expenses, and recovery related to these disasters are beyond comprehension or calculation). In our global economy, disasters anywhere can affect people everywhere. And this is why redundancy is more necessary than ever.

However, redundancy is evil because it feels duplicative, wasteful, and often, there is no payoff... like insurance. So what can businesses do to protect themselves from disasters while reducing the expense and effort that gets passed down to customers in the form of higher prices?

One example is within the huge and growing world of data centers and pubic cloud services. Two seemingly competing companies, which are both participating members of the Cloud Commons Ecosystem, have partnered in a true win-win-win scenario. One, StratITsphere is in Houston, and the other, ScaleMatrix, is in California. Both have robust data centers that provide cloud services and infrastructure to business customers. Instead of each of them having to develop independent (and possibly inferior) secondary plans for disasters, they have chosen to cross-leverage the world-class facilities that they have already created. ScaleMatirix will act as the backup for StratITsphere and vice versa. They're accomplishing this by investing in a 10Gbps transport ring between the two centers. In addition, each company will set up dedicated, secured equipment in the other's facility.

Instead of massive investments that would be passed down to end user customers as costs, ScaleMatrix and StratITsphere gain competitive advantages in their regions and retain the ability to keep customers satisfied. This type of collaboration is achieved through open-mindedness and partnerships that develop through participation in industry ecosystems such as the Cloud Commons Ecosystem. This is a prime example of how redundancy is necessary, but not evil. There is huge potential in online communities and industry ecosystems to stimulate win-win-win scenarios such as this. I look forward to more success stories from those who are willing to tip their hands and talk about their problems with the people who understand them best.

Can a business be too social?

Jeffrey Abbott — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Back in high school, when parents went out of town, nothing was more compelling than a party. I had to be there. Parties were my proving ground for social dominance, and provided opportunities that I just couldn't get under parental supervision - enough said. Missing a party made me a social outcast for a week's worth of conversations around the school lunch table. Back then, there were relatively few parties so all of them were significant.

But then college happened. Suddenly, there were parties every night. Like before, I tried to go to all of them. And I came close. I made a small impact on every frat party, dorm party, and house party I could find. And I assumed that socially successful people were doing the same.

But what I didn't realize as a college freshman is that it wasn't the same people at every party. I continued to spread myself too thin while other (smarter) people were being more selective. Other people focused their efforts across a few outlets and maintained a better balance of social and academic prevalence. Fortunately, before it was too late, I figured it out, adjusted, focused, and thrived. Some did better than me, while others burnt out.

The rise of online communities, cloud computing, social media and app stores is creating the same situation for businesses. Many businesses are striving to participate across all applicable media. They assume they need to do this, or they will fall behind. But it's now impossible to effectively manage all of them. The winning approach is to participate in a small number of communities, and do them extremely well. So how should a business determine what to focus on? What attributes should a business seek when selecting a community, or "ecosystem,"?

Look for:

A community sponsor that partners with you to aggregate and develop new solutions
A knowledge base of information, news, and opinions to help your target market understand the value of you and your peers
A technology platform that simplifies your product development and speeds your time to market
A focused member base of potential customers
An integrated marketplace that facilitates transactions between you and your customers

If your business happens to be cloud computing (like mine), then the Cloud Commons ecosystem, sponsored by CA Technologies, might be your answer. Service providers, software vendors, developers, enterprises, and other IT professionals join the Cloud Commons ecosystem to leverage a knowledge-based interactive community, cloud development tools, cloud test grid, and an online marketplace for cloud solutions. Members can learn best practices and approaches for adopting cloud, speed the development of software projects that use cloud, and simplify the process of buying, selling, and hosting cloud solutions.

ScaleMatrix, a top player in colocation, data center and private cloud hosting has long been a member of the Cloud Commons ecosystem for exactly these reasons. ScaleMatrix takes advantage of the ecosystem to educate, collaborate, sell, distribute, and provide support to its customers. (As a side bar, ScaleMatrix also signed an OEM agreement to distribute and support CA ARCserve® products in North America, extending our ongoing relationship.)

The unique value is that one single ecosystem is providing so many valuable uses. It is open and free to become a member. It encourages interactivity and collaboration. It provides free access to development resources. It is open to solutions that support the technology platform of the sponsoring company (CA) as well as 3^rd party technologies. It provides service providers with an open market to buy and sell. And the marketplace is optimized to support subscription based billing, as well as private and public deployment models. This provides maximum coverage while reducing sales and marketing resources needed for success.

The explosive growth of online communities, marketplaces, and social media means that software vendors and service providers must select versatile ecosystems that focus on their core businesses. They can't attend every party or they spread themselves too thin and make too little impact. Like ScaleMatrix, businesses must choose wisely if they want to graduate.

*Image courtesy of stock.xchng.

Five global partners recognized in first annual CA AppLogic Partner Awards

Christine Needles — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:11:00 GMT

On Monday night at "Accelerate the Cloud Miami 2012," a CA Technologies MSP Symposium event, the team was very pleased to give out the first annual CA AppLogic Partner Awards to five very deserving partners. ScaleMatrix, DNS Europe, CorePLUS World, Cirrhus9 and Bird Hosting were recognized for their achievements with the CA AppLogic® platform - including technology innovation and success in thought leadership and driving awareness, as well as support and participation in the Cloud Commons® ecosystem.

Take a look at today's press release for more details, and click here for photos.

Following are a few highlights of the awards:

CA AppLogic Partners of the Year

ScaleMatrix (Americas recipient), a provider of cloud solutions with an infrastructure-based approach, and DNS Europe (EMEA recipient), a London-based European cloud hosting provider, were selected for their exemplary overall contributions to the CA AppLogic partner community, and for their ongoing commitment to driving platform advancements and awareness in the marketplace.

I asked ScaleMatrix' Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Chris Orlando to share his thoughts about receiving the award. He said:

"The close relationship formed between ScaleMatrix and CA Technologies has been one of the contributing factors to our early success in the cloud and managed hosting space. Flagship products like CA AppLogic, CA ARCserve, and Nimsoft provide great differentiation and play a key role in providing the enterprise class solutions our clients demand. Being named Partner of the Year is a great honor, and we look forward to what our two organizations will be able to do together in 2012."

And Stephen Hurford, Cloud Services director of DNS Europe, had this to say:

"DNS Europe is honoured to receive this award from CA Technologies in recognition of the work we've been doing with CA AppLogic in Europe. It's very exciting for us to be part of the expanding community of AppLogic service providers and businesses taking advantage of this revolutionary private cloud platform. Looking forward we see significant opportunities for DNS Europe to expand our range of AppLogic support and development services throughout Europe and beyond, forging even stronger relationships with other leading partners in the global community of CA AppLogic MSPs."

CA AppLogic Cloud Trailblazer

CorePLUS World, an on-demand service provider delivering a complete outsourced solution for IT and application services, was recognized for its innovative approach to delivering IT services via the CA AppLogic platform.

CA AppLogic Market Influencer

Cirrhus9, a cloud computing systems integrator specializing in managed services, deployment and migration solutions, and qualification and validation services, was honored for its long-time commitment to driving market awareness and contributing to various CA AppLogic communities, such as the LinkedIn AppLogic Users Group and @AppLogic Twitter feed.

CA AppLogic Top Technical Contributor

Bird Hosting, a cloud service provider and longtime CA AppLogic customer, was recognized for its ongoing contributions to the advancement and development of the CA AppLogic platform.

Thanks to all who participated in the CA Technologies MSP Symposium and to all of the partners for all of their contributions to the ecosystem!

Behind the Scenes: ScaleMatrix turns customers into cloud addicts

Katherine Demacopoulos — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:30:00 GMT

When I interviewed Mark Ortenzi, the CEO of ScaleMatrix, for a profile as part of our Cloud Accelerator series, he told me a great story about how addictive cloud computing can be once you get the hang of it.

One of the biggest hurdles ScaleMatrix faces when working with a new customer is getting them to understand how cloud computing works. So, they recommend that customers get started with a pilot project to ease into it. On more than one occasion, Mark recalled that they've successfully gotten a customer project deployed, and everything is running swimmingly for a number of weeks and then, all of a sudden -- the customer is crossing all of the high-availability thresholds that ScaleMatrix set for them based on the expected traffic. Mark calls the customer up and, sure enough, they were so happy with the results they were seeing from the first project, that they started moving over more and more projects onto the cloud on their own.

I also found it interesting to learn about ScaleMatrix's creative approach to data center design. They've designed a server rack with self-contained cooling that enables them to achieve a Power Usage Effectiveness rating of only 1.1 (compared to the industry average of 1.5). They've also come up with a unique approach to fire suppression systems that helps them run their data center far more efficiently (and prevented them from having to spend $5 - 6 million up-front when they built a new data center.)

To learn more about ScaleMatrix and their experiences on the front-line of cloud computing, visit ca.com/cloudaccelerators.