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Cloud Computing Analysts encouraged by Microsoft’s ‘cloud’ progress

cloudtweaks — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:57:31 +0000

Cloud Computing Analysts encouraged by Microsoft’s ‘cloud’ progress

SEATTLE (MarketWatch) — Wall Street analysts came away from Microsoft Corp.’s annual gathering encouraged by the company’s progress in adapting to a market in which software applications are increasingly delivered online, according to research reports published Friday.

Microsoft increasingly has been moving into so-called cloud computing, where software is accessed through an Internet connection, rather than installed in a user’s computer.

Younger rivals including Google Inc. (GOOG 484.85, -0.14, -0.03%) , Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN 117.89, +1.03, +0.88%) and Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM 98.95, +1.16, +1.19%) have sought to expand the cloud-computing market, while Microsoft has endeavored to alter its own approach to keep pace.

Jefferies & Co. analyst Katherine Egbert pointed out that investors are shifting money out of Microsoft shares, based on concerns about how the company will develop new ways of making money.

Shares of Microsoft have fallen roughly 15% in the past three months, compared with a roughly 8% decline for the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP 2,255, +3.01, +0.13%) over the same period. The stock closed Friday down slightly, at $25.81.

But Egbert wrote in a research note that concerns about Microsoft may be exaggerated, as the company has a history of adopting “technologies, mostly invented by others, to the mass market.”

Cloud evolution

“We’re going to lead with the cloud,” Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner said at the company’s annual analyst meeting Thursday, while noting successes in vying for cloud-computing contracts against Google and International Business Machines Corp.
Microsoft “appears to be holding their own competitively” in cloud computing, Deutsche Bank analyst Todd Raker told clients in a note. “The bottom line is we believe the cloud is evolving from a secular threat to an opportunity” for the company.

However, Raker also acknowledged that the timing of any significant economic benefit from Microsoft’s cloud-computing effort remains “unclear,” noting that “we get significant pushback from investors on near-term reasons to own the stock.”

Some analysts argued that investors may not yet fully appreciate Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform service, which includes cloud computing and storage for customers hosted at the company’s data centers.

“While the buzz has picked up around Azure over the past 12 months, we do not believe the company gets enough credit,” Oppenheimer analyst Brad Reback told clients in his own research note.

“Azure should be a net revenue and profit creator” as more corporate customers snap up the service, he said.

Source: MarketWatch

UPDATE: Microsoft COO: ‘We Are Going To Lead With the Cloud’

cloudtweaks — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:36:03 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)–Cloud computing tops a four-point plan Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has developed for maintaining its position in the business-software market, Kevin Turner, the company’s chief operating officer, said Thursday.

“We are going to lead with the cloud,” Turner said at the Redmond, Wash. software giant’s analyst day. “It helps position Microsoft to sell more on-premise products.”

Microsoft plans to drive sales of its two key franchises, the Windows 7 operating system and the Office 2010 suite of business software, and hopes to improve customer satisfaction and expand market share.

Turner said that Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) and Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, part of Hyatt Hotels Corp. (H), are new customer wins for Microsoft’s cloud products.

“Both of those were very competitive bids against Google (GOOG) and IBM (IBM),” Turner said, calling out a slew of cloud competitors including Salesforce.com Inc. (CRM), VMware Inc. (VMW) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN). “Seventy percent of the wins in the cloud that we had in Q4 were new Microsoft customers.”

“Two years ago we were nowhere [in competition with VMware,] Turner added. “What’s Microsoft been able to do in just two years in this space? A 15.2% share gain per [International Data Corp.].”

Officials at VMware weren’t immediately available for comment.

Microsoft’s cloud customers include 13 of the top 20 global telecom firms, the company said, along with 15 of the top 20 global banks and 16 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies.

“The sweet spot we have for this company is right in the heart of providing IT as a service for customers,” Turner said. “Some of the biggest companies in the world are choosing Microsoft.”

A lot is expected from Thursday’s meeting as Microsoft struggles to redefine itself.

In recent months, Microsoft killed a high-profile mobile phone project less than two months after its launch, reorganized its entertainment division and saw its market capitalization slip below that of Apple Inc. (AAPL).

For investors, those events seem to have overshadowed that Microsoft is making lots of money and that Windows 7 has sold well. Turner said the latest iteration of the operating system was selling nearly eight copies every second. The company’s fiscal fourth-quarter profit climbed 48% to $4.5 billion.

But while Windows 7 is a big hit, all of Microsoft’s operating systems, as a group, have lost market share in recent years. According to an April estimate from market-watcher Gartner Inc., non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux and Apple’s Macintosh OS, have grown from 3.3% of the market in 2003 to 5.9% of the market currently.

Microsoft shares have dropped 15% so far this year. In early afternoon trading, Microsoft was up 0.3% at $26.21.

-By Jeanette Borzo, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-8230; jeanette.borzo@dowjones.com

Top 10 Cloud Computing Venture Capital Firms To Help Build Your Business

cloudtweaks — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:10:49 +0000

For more than 30 years, NEA has been helping to build great companies. Our committed capital has grown to $11 billion and we’ve funded more than 650 companies in the Information Technology, Energy Technology and Healthcare sectors.

For more than 49 years, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) has actively partnered with entrepreneurs to build and grow successful businesses. The firm manages more than $3.7 billion in capital, has funded over 450 companies since inception and has demonstrated an exemplary track record producing premier investment returns during differing capital market environments

U.S. Venture Partners

(USVP) has helped build great companies for three decades. Since its inception in 1981, USVP has invested over $2.7 billion in about 450 companies. Throughout, USVP’s partners have worked diligently and consistently with early-stage companies, many of which have become industry leaders.

Ignition Partners

Ignition is a venture capital firm dedicated to helping the best entrepreneurs seize opportunity.
From turning their early idea into a business, to hiring the right team, providing the right industry and functional insight and connections, to growing the business strategically, globally, financially, to realizing the best ultimate outcome, Ignition is ready to go the distance.
Ignition invests in emerging and future leaders in communications, internet, software, and services across business and consumer targets.

Sequoia

Sequoia Capital in the U.S. caters to the founders and management who have selected us as their business partners. We have learned that the only way to help develop a fabulous company is one step at a time. This only happens if the company makes wonderful products or delivers a service that thrills large numbers of customers. If that occurs then founders, management, and employees of these companies prosper. It is only then that the investor deserves to be rewarded. It has to happen in that order. There are no shortcuts.

First Round Capital

First Round Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm. As seed-stage investors, we often provide a company’s first outside capital – and typically invest alongside angel investors. Our typical initial investment in a company is around $500,000 – but we’ve gone both higher and lower.

We’re not afraid of investing in pre-revenue companies, and we understand the challenges of launching a new product. That’s why we like to take an active role in the companies we invest in.

Mission Ventures

Mission Ventures helps build successful enterprises in Southern California and creates superior returns on investment for its investors. This is accomplished by investing in the most promising early-stage companies in high growth, emerging markets, and providing significant assistance to those companies as they develop.

DAG Ventures

DAG Ventures

Hummer Windblad Venture Partners

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was founded in 1989 as the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in software companies. Through our history, we’ve had the opportunity to invest in the pioneers and leaders of several generations of software applications, architectures, delivery methods and business models. We’ve helped entrepreneurs build companies in desktop software, embedded systems, client-server, distributed network computing, internet, software as a service and cloud computing.

Shasta Ventures

Was formed expressly to help entrepreneurs build great companies, our primary objective is to provide outstanding service to the companies in our portfolio. It means we have the time to work with early-stage companies because we serve on a limited number of boards. And it means we care about the companies we invest in—not only the businesses, but the people as well.

CA Technologies buys its way into cloud fray

cloudtweaks — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:33:56 +0000

By Kevin Kwang, ZDNet Asia

Its 2010 acquisition blitz to date includes Oblicore, Nimsoft and 3Tera and shows no signs of slowing as CA Technologies (CA) continues its buying spree to “plug gaps” and bulk up on technical capabilities, particularly in the cloud environment.

According to Andi Mann, vice president of product marketing at CA, the company has “some money left to spend” on companies that will complement the technologies and capabilities it already has.

“Previously, we have been acquiring companies for revenue stream but with the acquisitions of Nimsoft, 3Tera and others, we are now looking to buy technologies that can solve the problems we see our customers struggling with in the cloud environment [such as vendor lock-in and platform interoperability],” Mann said in an interview with ZDNet Asia.

He noted that with these acquisitions in place, the company’s products are now able to operate atop various data center architectures such as x86, Linux and Unix.

Cloud thrust fueled by customer interest
Elaborating on the company’s move to focus heavily on the cloud, Mann said businesses in the region are showing strong demand for the delivery model.

He pointed to IDC’s cloud computing survey conducted in April this year, which showed that 25 percent of companies surveyed in six Asia-Pacific countries–Australia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and India–said they currently use cloud computing.

This is more than double of a similar study conducted in 2009, when only 9 percent of respondents were actively using cloud technology, he said, noting that the increase is indicative of the market’s potential.

To illustrate CA’s cloud strategy, Mann cited the 3Tera acquisition as an example of how the company aims to address the issue of vendor lock-in for applications architected over on-demand infrastructure provided by cloud vendors such as Salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

With 3Tera’s AppLogic technology, he explained that companies can now simply “click and drop” applications from existing datacenter systems to virtualized machines, thus, simplifying the architecting and deployment of complex software across various platforms.

The simplicity of the technology also helps alleviate the lack of skilled manpower to move organizations into cloud computing, he added.

According to Chris Morris, IDC’s Asia-Pacific services director, the recent global recession had resulted in a lack of enterprise investment in IT skills and employee training over a 12- to 18-month period. This caused the skills shortage, said Morris, who sat in on the interview.

Expanding on Asian presence
Further elaborating on CA’s cloud strategy, Andy Cooper, its vice president of regional field marketing, said the Nimsoft acquisition will help increase the company’s presence in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the area of providing scalability which is a key feature of cloud computing.

Cooper explained that the number of big organizations in the region is comparably lower than the United States and Europe, but this landscape is set to change. And as Asia-Pacific midsize companies prepare to expand, CA–through its Nimsoft capabilities–is hoping to target this group of customers and provide the scalability they need to grow.

In a statement announcing the acquisition in March, CA said Nimsoft offers “one of the most comprehensive suites of IT monitoring and management solutions”. It will also provide organizations insights into application behaviors and infrastructure health and help ensure the reliability of critical business services and optimize hardware utilization, the company added.

In an earlier report by ZDNet Asia’s sister site, ZDNet, Deutsche Bank analyst Todd Raker said CA, due to its differentiated product lineup, is well-positioned to take advantage of these opportunities in the virtualization and cloud space.

Raker added that the shift in data centers to a hybrid model encompassing physical, virtual and cloud environments creates a huge opportunity for the software vendor, and he believes that the execution of its strategy will determine its success.

Maturing cloud ecosystem
According to IDC’s Morris, cloud deployment among enterprises will move beyond “sandboxing” and into mainstream adoption by mid-2011.

He added that tools built to help companies migrate to the cloud platform are also “maturing” in tandem and many of these will be available in the “next 12 months”.

Article credit: ZDnet

Fujitsu sales suggest the market is turning

cloudtweaks — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:20:03 +0000

News that Fujitsu UK & Ireland has signed £200m in new business with three large customers will be seen as welcome relief to Fujitsu shareholders, among others.

While it will disappoint the companies that lost to Fujitsu, they will nevertheless be encouraged that the private sector is once again spending money. After keeping their hands in their pockets for the past 30 months, customers now seem more open to suggestion.
Fujitsu UK CEO Roger Gilbert detects a new note in discussions these days. IT is a boardroom topic, especially when it comes to mergers and demergers, he says. And where the CEO has plans, IT is beginning to figure prominently in his or her calculations, he says.
Customers are coming back to the market to find a different set of conditions compared to when they last were here. Thirty months is almost two generations of silicon life, so, following Moore’s Law, they are getting about four times more processing power for the same pound.
They are also seeing a tectonic shift towards “cloud computing”, however that is defined. That is putting a greater emphasis on the capacity and reliability o of the networks to bring it all together.
While there are clearly growing capacity issues in the public networks, bandwidth, access and cost are all moving in favour of customers. Many customers think their own internal leased networks will make them immune from such considerations. They are wrong. The rise of social networks and growing willingness of consumers to use networks to interact with companies means that no company can afford to ignore the constraints imposed by congestion in the public networks.
Responsible companies should be adding their voices to the debate over Broadband Britain to ensure that their customers have fast, cheap reliable access to them, wherever they may be.

Source: ComputerWeekly

Vision Solutions Acquires Industry-Leading Double-Take Software

cloudtweaks — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:11:34 +0000

Leading High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solutions for Windows, Linux, Power Systems and Cloud Computing Now Available From a Single Provider

IRVINE, CA, Jul 26, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Today Vision Solutions, Inc. announced that it has completed the acquisition of Double-Take Software, Inc., a leading provider of recovery solutions for the rapidly growing Windows, Linux and Cloud Computing markets. The acquisition significantly expands Vision Solutions’ product offerings and distribution capabilities in the Windows and open systems markets, and strengthens its prominence throughout the information availability marketplace.

“This is an extremely important event for Vision, Double-Take and the clients we serve,” says Vision Solutions’ President and CEO Nicolaas Vlok. “Independently, each company has been a respected industry leader in its own information availability markets. Together, we are a global leader with the capability to serve companies — whatever the size, location or sector — with a competitive portfolio across major IT platforms. Among the many benefits for customers and partners is the ability to cross-pollinate ideas and technologies across our combined development and services teams.”

Backed by private equity investor Thoma Bravo, Vision’s acquisition of Double-Take Software marks its third strategic transaction in the information and high availability marketplace since November, 2006 when it merged with iTera, Inc. Vision later acquired Lakeview Technology in June, 2007.

“We’re excited to partner with Vision Solutions to create the clear industry leader for the IBM Power Systems, Windows and open systems information availability markets. Adding Double-Take’s class-leading range of solutions to Vision’s family of products will create the broadest and most innovative portfolio of information availability technology globally,” says Scott Crabill, managing partner at Thoma Bravo, the private equity company behind Vision Solutions.

Nearly doubling in size, the expanding organization now includes one of the world’s largest development, services and customer support centers for information availability software. These resources, including one of the most established global partner networks, provide unprecedented coverage for customers of all sizes and geographies.

“We’re fortunate to be bringing together some of the best minds and intellectual property in the information availability industry,” says Alan Arnold, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Vision Solutions. “This enables us to consistently bring to market important new enhancements and technologies that address customer needs.”

Vision Solutions’ partners are welcoming the opportunity to expand their businesses with a competitive portfolio of top-tier availability brands for IBM i, AIX, Windows and Linux, and industry analysts have been positive about the growing organization as well. “The coming together of Vision Solutions and Double-Take Software gives Avnet access to a suite of best-in-class information availability products for major platforms which support our VirtualPath(R) and StoragePath(TM) solutions,” said Gavin Miller, vice president of Technology Infrastructure Solutions for Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas. “This acquisition provides Avnet and its partners with a great opportunity to work with a single vendor and expand our existing relationship.”

“Vision Solutions and Double-Take are expected to see synergies in their combined business, because high availability and data-replication products are increasingly seen as key to disaster recovery — and to planning for it,” said Jean S. Bozman, research vice president of IDC’s Enterprise Platforms Group. “Both types of software are essential ingredients of business continuity, as they allow re-start of applications and access to business data. Importantly, the combined company will also address a broader market than before — with products for scalable servers, as well as for the large deployments of volume x86 servers in today’s virtualized infrastructure.”

“As a Vision Solutions and Double-Take customer, I see this development as a positive,” says Alexander Kazakov, Deputy Head of IT Division, Raiffeisen Bank Russia, a division of the international 1.7 billion euro Raiffeisen Zentralbank. “It is an excellent opportunity for the market to receive complete data integrity solutions and services from one trusted vendor.”

About Vision Solutions Vision Solutions, Inc. is the world’s leading provider of information availability software and services for Windows, Linux, IBM Power Systems and Cloud Computing markets. Vision’s trusted Double-Take(R), MIMIX(R) and iTERA(TM) high availability and disaster recovery brands support business continuity, satisfy compliance requirements and increase productivity. Affordable and easy-to-use, Vision products are backed by certified worldwide 24X7 customer support centers and a global partner network that includes IBM /quotes/comstock/13*!ibm/quotes/nls/ibm (IBM 128.38, 0.00, 0.00%) , HP, Microsoft, VMware and Dell. Privately held by Thoma Bravo, Vision Solutions is headquartered in Irvine, California, USA with offices worldwide. For more information, visit visionsolutions.com, search for VSIChannel on popular social networks or call 1 800.957.4511 (toll-free U.S. and Canada) or 801.799.0300.

About Thoma Bravo, LLC Thoma Bravo is a leading private equity investment firm that has been providing equity and strategic support to experienced management teams building growing companies for more than 29 years. The firm originated the concept of industry consolidation investing, which seeks to create value through the strategic use of acquisitions to accelerate business growth. Thoma Bravo applies its investment strategy across multiple industries with a particular focus on the software and services sectors. In the software industry, Thoma Bravo has completed more than 50 acquisitions across 15 platform companies with total annual earnings in excess of $700 million. For more information on Thoma Bravo, visit www.thomabravo.com

8 Promising Private Cloud Computing Companies

cloudtweaks — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:25:47 +0000

Cloupia was founded by experienced entrepreneurs and funded by Silicon Valley angel investors to create the foundation for next-generation cloud technologies. We are a group of seasoned professionals with complementary IT backgrounds joining forces to help businesses with complex IT needs ranging from small business to large enterprises. Our corporate headquarters is based in Santa Clara, California and development center in Hyderabad, India.

Fusepoint is a privately held company with data centres in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Through our proven record of success we have built a loyal customer base and developed solid strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Bell Canada, Microsoft, SUN, Cisco, Dell, Oracle and HP.

Amplidata was founded by a group of storage veterans, who also helped build the success of DataCenter Technologies (acquired by Veritas in 2005) and Dedigate (acquired by Terremark in 2005). The development team is responsible for patent-pending distributed storage innovations. Amplidata has its operational headquarter in Lochristi, Belgium. R&D are located in Belgium and Egypt, sales and support are represented in a number of countries in Europe and North America. Also the winner of the “Cloud Computing World Series Awards 2010″ for “Best cloud storage solution”

WSO2 is an innovative Open Source technology company devoted to building Web services middleware for your SOA. Offering leading products, support and other services, WSO2 was founded in August 2005. WSO2 is a global corporation with offices located in USA, UK and Sri Lanka.

Intalio software can be found everywhere, powering some of the largest companies in the world like Deutsche Bank, Mitsubishi, NTT, and Vodafone, as well as 3 out of the 10 most visited websites, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo! Intalio’s technology was even used to drive NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers!

VMware Vsphere VMware vSphere, the industry’s most complete and robust virtualization platform, dramatically reduces capital and operating costs and maximizes IT efficiency while giving you agility through automation and the freedom to choose applications, OS and hardware.

LayerBoom (Acquired by Joyent) Builds hardware and software management tools for hosting companies that let them turn their Dedicated Servers into Virtual Private Server Clouds. They are based in Vancouver, Canada.

3X.com 3X Systems was founded in 2006 by entrepreneur Alan Arman with a clear mission stemming from a lack of practical and affordable data backup products in the marketplace. His mission was to create a reliable offsite backup solution that is automated, easy to use and affordable. Today, 3X Systems has hundreds of corporate clients worldwide using the 3X RBA® (Remote Backup Appliance) solution to protect their mission critical data without removable media such as tapes, CDs or DVDs in a fully automated fashion to offsite facilities without giving up access to or control of their data.

Cloud Computing News – Savvis Announces Time for Second Quarter 2010 Earnings Call

cloudtweaks — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:38:39 +0000

ST. LOUIS, July 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Savvis, Inc. (Nasdaq: SVVS), a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises, today announced that it plans to release its second quarter 2010 financial results before the market opens on Monday, July 26, 2010. Company executives will host a financial analyst call at 10 a.m. EDT that morning, to discuss second quarter earnings and to provide a general business update.

The dial-in number for financial analysts in North America is (866) 835-8906 or (703) 639-1413 for international analysts. To participate, please dial in a few minutes before the scheduled time. Employees, the media and the public are invited to listen to the call at www.savvis.net. A supporting presentation will also be available at www.savvis.net on the Investor Relations page.

A replay of the call will be available through Saturday, Aug. 7, by dialing (888) 266-2081 in North America or (703) 925-2533 internationally and using the access code 1469201. A webcast replay will also be archived for a limited period on the company’s web site at www.savvis.net.

About Savvis

Savvis, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVVS) is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises. More than 2,500 unique clients, including 30 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500, use Savvis to reduce capital expense, improve service levels and harness the latest advances in cloud computing. For more information, please visit www.savvis.net.

SOURCE Savvis, Inc.

http://www.savvis.net

IBM unit plans to hire 600 workers to help fill their 100,000-square-foot cloud computing center

cloudtweaks — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:35:29 +0000

New RTP center may draw up to $7.8M in state incentives

DURHAM, Jul 09, 2010 (The Herald-Sun – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –

A subsidiary of IBM is planning to hire 600 workers and invest $3.7 million in a new process service center in Durham’s Research Triangle Park in the next two years.

As a result of the project, IBM Lender Business Process Services Inc., a specialty loan processing company, could receive up to $7.8 million in incentive payments from North Carolina state government during the next decade.

Gov. Beverly Perdue touted the jobs and facility announcement on Thursday, calling attention to IBM’s longstanding presence in the state.

“IBM has been a major employer in North Carolina providing thousands of skilled jobs for more than 30 years,” Perdue said. “We value this company’s ongoing commitment to North Carolina and Research Triangle Park.”

LBPS will begin hiring immediately for the 600 positions, with salaries averaging $50,000.

Employees in the new center will perform various business process outsourcing activities for financial industry clients.

The new center will be in one of IBM’s existing buildings at its sprawling campus in RTP. LBPS also will transfer its Charlotte office to the new facility, while continuing to maintain a presence in Charlotte, according to an IBM spokesman.

“IBM Lender Business Process Services is taking industry-leading steps to apply its broad and deep history of technology and business management capabilities to provide new and innovative solutions to our clients in the financial services industry,” said Bruce McConnel with IBM. “We are strengthening our commitment to business processing services, improving our clients’ flexibility, competitiveness and ability to manage their businesses more efficiently through ever changing dynamic market cycles.”

The new project was made possible by a state Job Development Investment Grant.

For each year the company meets the required performance targets, the state will provide a grant equal to 65 percent of the state personal income withholding taxes derived from the creation of new jobs.

Should the company create the jobs called for under the agreement and sustain them for 10 years, the agreement could yield as much as $7.79 million in maximum benefits for IBM, according to the governor’s office.

This is the most recent project undertaken by IBM in RTP.

In February, the Armonk, N.Y.-based computing giant opened a $362 million, 100,000-square-foot cloud computing center in RTP. Durham County is giving IBM $750,000 in incentives during seven years for the center.

At the same time, IBM also has been restructuring its global workforce, including in RTP.

In March, the company also reportedly began laying off 1 percent of its workforce or about 1,000 workers worldwide. The total number of workers affected in RTP is unknown.

In March 2009, the company disclosed that it had laid off 334 workers at RTP, where it employed about 10,000 people.

“The new services operation furthers our commitment to the state of North Carolina and our ongoing presence in Research Triangle Park,” Bob Greenberg, senior state executive of IBM’s North Carolina operations, said in an official statement on Thursday. “These skilled positions, coupled with our investment earlier this year in an energy efficient cloud-computing data center, demonstrate that as the marketplace demands new skills and technology, growth opportunities in North Carolina continue to be a hub of activity.”

Source TradingMarkets

3PAR Helps Smarsh Harness the Scalability of the Cloud

cloudtweaks — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:23:35 +0000

Industry’s Fastest-Growing Email Archiving Provider Gains Efficiency and Flexibility for Its Tier 1 SaaS Deployment

REMONT, CA, Jul 07, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — 3PAR(R) (PAR 9.10, -0.30, -3.19%) , the leading global provider of utility storage, announced today that Smarsh, the managed service leader in secure, innovative, and reliable email archiving solutions, has deployed 3PAR Utility Storage within its secure cloud infrastructure. Smarsh deployed a highly scalable 3PAR InServ(R) T-Class Storage Server to support its Microsoft(R) SQL Server(R) database, and a second T-Class array to handle backup and recovery. As a result, the hosted service provider reduced its database storage footprint by 66%, storage capacity requirements by 45%, and provisioning time by 40%.

“We evaluated multiple vendors and found that only 3PAR could address the unique reliability, performance, and scalability challenges we were facing while supporting SQL Server Always On Technologies,” said Stephen Marsh, CEO and founder of Smarsh. “In addition, 3PAR delivered superior technology as compared to other leading storage vendors.”

Faced with data growth rates in the neighborhood of 2 TB per month, Smarsh had long outgrown its Direct Attached Storage (DAS) environment. In addition to space limitations, Smarsh needed to ensure ongoing high performance with its Microsoft SQL Server database as the company grows. Smarsh began to evaluate other storage options that would be compatible with its SQL Server deployment and support SQL Server Always On Technologies.

By deploying 3PAR Utility Storage in conjunction with SQL Server, Smarsh experienced the following benefits:

--  Scalable performance: 3PAR's massively parallel and autonomically
    load-balanced architecture has continued to deliver increasing
    performance and agility levels amidst exponential increases in data
    and user volume at Smarsh.

--  Always On Technologies: 3PAR's support for Microsoft's SQL Server
    Always On Technologies has enabled Smarsh to deliver customers
    continuous access to their billions of archived emails, even as the
    company has continued to scale to accommodate growth.

--  Maximum capacity utilization: With 3PAR, Smarsh has reduced its SQL
    storage footprint by two-thirds and nearly halved capacity
    requirements by improving capacity utilization using 3PAR's Fast RAID
    technology and 3PAR Thin Provisioning software.

--  Expedited application development: 3PAR has helped Smarsh to
    accelerate the development and testing of new applications by enabling
    the company's internal departments to share production-quality SQL
    Server data instantly, affordably, and flexibly using 3PAR Virtual
    Copy.

--  Rapid response to change: With its 3PAR InServ arrays, Smarsh has
    gained the ability to mix storage tiers and protocols within the same
    system, while autonomic tiered storage capabilities ensure the service
    provider's ability to respond rapidly to changing business conditions
    for significantly less than monolithic storage.

“3PAR Utility Storage provided the resilient cloud infrastructure that Smarsh required to scale its business simply and efficiently while ensuring high and consistent performance levels,” said David Scott, President and CEO for 3PAR. “Smarsh customers, in turn, are benefiting from quick, reliable, and completely secure access to their archived data — a critical factor in proactively managing and mitigating risk.”

About Smarsh Smarsh(R) provides hosted solutions for archiving electronic communications, including email, instant messaging and social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Founded in 2001, Smarsh helps over 10,000 organizations manage and enforce flexible, secure and cost-effective compliance and records retention strategies and mitigate risk. For more information, visit www.smarsh.com or follow Smarsh at www.twitter.com/SmarshInc.

About 3PAR 3PAR(R) (PAR 9.10, -0.30, -3.19%) is the leading global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualized, dynamically tiered, multi-tenant storage arrays built for public and private cloud computing. Our virtualized storage platform was built from the ground up to be agile and efficient and to eliminate the limitations of traditional storage arrays for utility infrastructures. As a pioneer of thin provisioning and other storage virtualization technologies, we design our products to reduce power consumption to help companies meet their green computing initiatives and to cut storage total cost of ownership. 3PAR customers have used our self-managing, efficient, and adaptable utility storage systems to reduce administration time and provisioning complexity, to improve server and storage utilization, and to scale and adapt flexibly in response to continuous growth and changing business needs. For more information, visit the 3PAR Website at: www.3PAR.com.