Hybrid Cloud with Cloning Capability May Not Bode Well for Cloud Platform Developers
December 17, 2012
The introduction of hybrid technology comes as no surprise, but one has to wonder how current developers will feel about being cloned in the future. TechCrunch’s article “CloudVelocity Launches With $5M from Mayfield to Bring the Hybrid Cloud to the Enterprise” discusses the introduction of a hybrid cloud and its growing potential, along with its cloud cloning ability.
This new technology could save companies a bundle off initial investments, but smart platform designers may take precautions against cloning in the future. One has to wonder what preparations have already been made, if any. Investors want to be certain the risk of this approach is worth the effort.
“One Hybrid Cloud platform, aims to extend the enterprise data center to the public cloud, by enabling multi-tier applications to run without modification in the cloud and access services that reside in the enterprise data center. In a nutshell, the startup allows enterprises to get the benefits of private clouds in the public cloud. Users can discover, blueprint, clone, and migrate applications between data centers and public clouds. Currently, CloudVelocity supports full server, networking, security and storage integration with AWS but plans to integrate other public clouds.”
The excitement around startups and cloud solutions is great but corporations are reluctant to take chances with sensitive data. Those enterprises seeking stability in the growing hybrid cloud universe may find some assurance in relying on a mature, capable enterprise provider. Intrafind offers consultative solutions and reliable cloud solutions with secure access.
Jennifer Shockley, December 17, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
HP Moves Printing Into Next Generation
December 13, 2012
Who does not like to hear that offices can increase productivity, decrease costs and improve efficiency? HP is making all three even easier with new technologies discussed in their news release, “HP Unveils New Printing Innovations That Digitize the Office; Help Reduce Costs.” For the enterprise, the most exciting aspect is that data access will be simplified.
Take the HP flow MFPs, for example. This can be integrated with content management solutions from software vendor Autonomy, an HP Company. It could be done either on-site or through the cloud.
We also learned about another notable new innovation:
“The HP Flow CM Professional brings enterprise-class content management to growing businesses, with security features that also support leading banks, legal firms and stock exchanges. The cloud-based offering increases collaboration and productivity by easily capturing, indexing, storing, searching and retrieving documents through a unique user-friendly interface designed with the customer in mind.”
New printers also be added in to their arsenal of offerings geared to shake up productivity. We just wonder if we’ve hit the time where snapping in IDOL will become a job like changing a toner cartridge. Only time will tell.
Megan Feil, December 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
X1 Discovery and NW3C Offer Social Discovery Class
December 13, 2012
We’ve made a discovery regarding eDiscovery. The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) has teamed up with X1 Discovery to offer some social media eDiscovery training. So far, their “X1SD Class List” is quite short, with one low-profile event scheduled to be held in Dec 2012 in New York City. The class description reads:
“This course provides ‘hands-on’ training designed specifically to address the needs of social media investigators. Participants will develop the practical skills, insights, and knowledge necessary to successfully gather data from Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedln in a manner and form conducive to an investigation, whether that investigation is civil or criminal in nature.
“X1 Social Discovery Training will:
- Familiarize students with Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln;
- Teach Students how to use X1 Discovery to address social media content and information:
- Teach Students how to collect and authenticate information relevant to their investigations;
- Teach Students how to prepare reports; and
- Provide the students with practical exercises to enhance their skills.”
A central resource for state and local agencies fighting economic and high-tech crime, NW3C began in 1978 as the Leviticus Project, and was originally devoted to a specific multi-state investigation. In 1991, its mission was expanded to providing training, maintaining databases, and providing analytical services to agencies in all 50 states. Renamed the following year, the Center has vastly expanded its membership throughout the U.S. and into fifteen other countries.
Not surprisingly, X1 Discovery focuses on eDiscovery, with a current emphasis on social media and cloud-based data. The company designs its eDiscovery and enterprise search solutions specifically for IT and legal professionals. Originally founded by Idealab in 2011, X1 is based in Pasadena, California.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Amazon CloudSearch Features and Pricing Explained
November 29, 2012
Amazon Web Services Blog aims to bring tools to the table that helps build powerful Web sites and applications with little time and cost. In “Amazon CloudSearch – Start Searching in One Hour for Less Than $100 / Month,” the author explains the importance of Web site search and Amazon CloudSearch capabilities. This is given about search challenges:
Search plays a major role in many web sites and other types of online applications. The basic model is seemingly simple…Needless to say, things can get very complex very quickly…We know that scaling a search system is non-trivial. There are lots of moving parts, all of which must be designed, implemented, instantiated, scaled, monitored, and maintained. As you scale, algorithmic complexity often comes in to play; you soon learn that algorithms and techniques which were practical at the beginning aren’t always practical at scale.
The author also highlights Amazon CloudSearch’s advanced searching and programming features. And while Amazon CloudSearch touts search scaling capabilities, it is hard to overlook the complex pricing model based on the number of running search instances, hourly costs, batch upload charges, and per Gigabyte prices. You might first want to take advantage of the Mindbreeze InSite free trial for a truly powerful search feature with no install required. In addition, their pricing model is straight-forward.
Philip West, November 29, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PolySpot Adds In Connector to Social Technology Giant Blue Kiwi
November 28, 2012
Productivity is the name of the game for enterprise infrastructure software vendor PolySpot. Now, they have added in another connector to their list spanning over 100. The article “The Blue Kiwi Connector for PolySpot is Ready!” tells us more about this forward-thinking move.
Since BlueKiwi is Europe’s largest cloud based enterprise social software solution, it was a no-brainer for PolySpot to develop a connector and add it to their library.
The author states in his post on the subject:
“But beyond collaboration and co-creation, what good is creating, or co-creating information if the fruit of the collective intelligence of employees can not be quickly found? Thus, to offer the use of our converging technologies, the R&D department at PolySpot has developed a BlueKiwi connector for PolySpot. With BlueKiwi and PolySpot, employees would enjoy a productive environment, strengthening collaborative and social innovation, expertise finding and sharing.”
What is productivity without social? This is the question users do not have to learn the hard way that social technologies do in fact fuel productivity. Thanks to PolySpot’s Information At Work, the social power of BlueKiwi is now a part of the picture.
Megan Feil, November 28, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
EPiServer Adds an SEO Manager Tool to Product Suite
November 27, 2012
In “EPiServer Gets SEO Manager Add-On for Web CMS,” Anthony Myers discusses the recent release from EPiServer to add to its Web content management suite of offerings. SEO Manager as a commercial add-on for EPiServer CMS is now available. The new tool is explained:
URL management in particular can be tricky because it has to be done on the server side for things like changing page names, changing section names and moving pages around a website.
SEO Manager is the tool that optimizes a site’s URL’s, one of the things many Web properties lose sight of while focusing on keywords, headings and content (see: Content Strategy: The Perils of Search Engine Optimization). Those are obviously key to improving on search results, but more is needed to bump that all important Google ranking.
New features include renaming pages without rank loss, URL history memory, and optimized results in Google Analytics. The new tool may be worth looking at for SEO. But it doesn’t take away the need for good content and a user friendly Web site. InSite illuminates all of your information from documents to Web pages to social media networks with the power of semantic search for your Web site visitors.
Philip West, November 27, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Nextag Troubleshoots Declining Google Web Traffic
November 26, 2012
Relying on Google alone for Web site traffic is tricky business. In the New York Times article, “Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites,” Steve Lohr and Claire Cain Miller look at the comparison shopping Web site Nextag.com’s bout with declining Google traffic. After Nextag engineers tested their side of the matter and found no issues, they doubled their spending on Google paid search advertising in the last five months. The move was seen as a necessity considering the amount of Web traffic Nextag received from both free and paid search ads. The issue has also gotten the attention of the US government because of possible antitrust violations. The author’s add this about Nextag’s next move:
His Google traffic now costs more. Two years ago, 60 percent of Nextag’s traffic from Google was from free search and 40 percent paid — people clicking on ads Nextag bought. Today, it is 30 percent free and 70 percent paid.
But his company has also shifted its strategy to become less vulnerable to Google’s charge into commerce. It has invested heavily in its underlying technology to help Web sites attract visitors, especially ones most likely to buy their goods.
The article is a good overview of the pitfalls when relying on Google advertising and what direction the issue is headed. One way to shift strategy from advertising is by enriching your Web site experience for visitors with a powerful search feature. InSite from Mindbreeze is one cost-effective and no-install required option worth looking at. InSite gives a custom searching experience unique to the user with the added benefit of mobile capabilities.
Philip West, November 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Open Source Cloud Company Expands
November 26, 2012
Clouds expand and contract based on heating and cooling. Cloud computing companies expand based on how many partners and funding they receive. Network World tracked down a company that is following this economic trend: “RightScale Joins OpenStack, Supports Rackspace’s Open Cloud.” RightScale’s software is used to manage private and public clouds, and it will join with Rackspace to support its open source project. Rackspace has an OpenStack-powered Cloud. OpenStack is gaining more traction and this also that RightScale is dedicated to include open source choices for its customers.
“ ‘Enterprise interest in OpenStack continues to increase,’ says RightScale CEO Michael Crandell. Rackspace’s open source cloud aligns closely to the OpenStack trunk code, which minimizes proprietary extensions, he says. RightScale already works as an integrator with a variety of other public and private cloud platforms…on the private cloud side, RightScale can be used to manage workloads on the OpenStack, CloudStack and Eucalyptus platforms, all of which are open source.”
This partnership does not come as a surprise, as more companies are understanding the benefits of Cloud computing and storage, not to mention the cost-effectiveness of open source. They need to remember, however, that Cloud enterprises need to be searched as much as site-based storage. They may want to give LucidWorks’ search applications a look, a trusted industry leader.
Whitney Grace, November 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Protecting and Maintaining Web Site Search Rankings
November 23, 2012
Web site search rankings are important. There is no denying that search engine optimization (SEO) is an important and necessary endeavor for those who earn their livelihood on the Web. But getting there is only half the battle when it comes to SEO. Simply achieving the rankings isn’t enough – you must hold onto them. Entrepreneur tells us how in, “3 Steps to Protecting Your Website’s Search Rankings.”
The author begins:
You’ve worked hard to follow search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to earn high rankings for your website in the search engine results pages (SERPs). After weeks or even months of content creation, customer outreach and link building efforts, you’ve finally reached a coveted spot in the rankings. Unfortunately, your hard work isn’t over. To understand why, think about the difficulty of maintaining your ideal body weight. While taking off pounds can be a challenge, keeping the weight off is often an even bigger struggle. Similarly, maintaining high rankings in the natural search results can be even more of a challenge than obtaining them in the first place.
One way to add a level of currency and usability to your Web site (both of which improve SEO) is to add an effective Web site search function like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Insite. Insite comes from a trusted leader in enterprise, Fabasoft Mindbreeze, and its automatic indexing is maintenance free and requires no installation. Insite is just one way to ease the heavy burden of Web site maintenance and the struggle to achieve and maintain high search engine rankings.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 23, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Synata Unveils SAAS for the Enterprise
November 22, 2012
Synata is a San Francisco start-up that is soon to unveil as disruptive search platform for the enterprise cloud. As part of their efforts, they are seeking the opinions of major users of the following services: LinkedIn, Google Apps, and Zendesk. The San Francisco Chronicle gives the full perspective in, “San Francisco Startup Bringing Enterprise Search to the Cloud, Looking to Talk to Salesforce, LinkedIn, Zendesk, and Google Apps Users.”
Patrick White, the founder of Synata, gives his overview of the product:
‘Call it decision-point data, or real-time insight, or anything you want, but we’re going to make it insanely simple to search across your cloud data sources easily and get answers quickly.’ said Patrick White, Co-founder and CEO . . . But, the vision for Synata isn’t just about search – it’s also about giving users a really elegant way view data about a single topic or person, even when that data comes from a lot of different places. Eventually the platform will allow users to answer hard questions and find connections in their data they never knew were there.
It looks like Synata is doing two things: enterprise search and Web site search. We have not had much experience with this new product, but it seems like Fabasoft Mindbreeze might already be tackling both of these tasks. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Insite offers Cloud based maintenance-free Web site search for your public facing sites. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise offers an enterprise search solutions that works as a standalone piece or serves as a compliment to an existing Sharepoint infrastructure. Either way, service is quick, customer-oriented, and cost-efficient. New and exciting names and ideas will continue to pop up in the enterprise world, but sometimes its good to stick to the ones that you know, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 22, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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