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Benefits Of Cloud Computing Solutions

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Cloud computing solutions are becoming quite popular across the business world nowadays. But, a lot of people are still puzzled as to what cloud computing solutions are and what exactly it can do for them.This article provides a comprehensive overview of cloud computing services.

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At Octo, the difference is clear. It's in our DNA. We're a want-it-more, obsessed-with-client-success consulting firm. We're hungry for results and stop at nothing to deliver on every engagement.

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CLOUD SECURITY

What Is Cloud-Native and Why Does it Matter for CI

Article | July 19, 2022

Continuous intelligence (CI) relies on the real-time analysis of streaming data to produce actionable insights in milliseconds to seconds. Such capabilities have applications throughout a business. In today’s dynamic marketplace, new CI applications that use data from various sources at any given time might be needed on very short notice.The challenge is how to have the flexibility to rapidly develop and deploy new CI applications to meet fast-changing business requirements. A common approach employed today is to use a dynamic architecture that delivers access to data, processing power, and analytics capabilities on demand. In the future, solutions also will likely incorporate artificial intelligence applications to complement the benefits of traditional analytics. Increasingly, cloud-native is the architecture of choice to build and deploy AI-embedded CI applications. A cloud-native approach offers benefits to both the business and developers. Cloud-native applications or services are loosely coupled with explicitly described dependencies.

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CLOUD SECURITY

Why Microsoft Should Spinoff Its Cloud Business

Article | August 4, 2022

Microsoft currently features old-school solutions that are growing relatively slowly (Office and Windows) and new cloud solutions that are growing tremendously (Dynamics 365 and Azure). If the company stays in its current form, Microsoft stock will keep steadily advancing. But because the company’s total top and bottom lines are never going to increase much more than 30% or 35% per year, the shares are never going to deliver truly huge returns. But that would change if the company was to spin off its rapidly growing cloud businesses. In such a scenario, the current owners of Microsoft stock would receive shares in a cutting edge cloud services company (let’s call it Azure), and shares in a company focused on providing old, mostly PC-based software to businesses and consumers.

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CPaaS,Cloud Communication,CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT

Intelligence Giant Upgrading its Cloud Technology

Article | November 29, 2022

With the huge amounts of data in all fields, a future in the cloud is imperative to help deal with this explosion of data, especially in the field of intelligence technology. This is the reason why the US Central Intelligence Agency is updating its cloud technology. The agency has recently released a draft request for proposal for its Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract.The C2E tens of billions contract will be a multi-award commercial cloud computing contract with a five-year base period and two five-year options for a period of performance of up to 15 years, according to nextgov.com.In a March 2019 presentation by the Directorate of Digital Innovation, a division of the CIA, the department outlined its vision for C2E. It would be broad and include infrastructure, platform and software cloud services supporting a broad range of users, with a variety of security clearances and a worldwide presence, as reported by techcrunch.com. The principal C2E Program objective is to acquire cloud computing services directly from commercial cloud service providers with established records for innovation and operational excellence in cloud service delivery for a large customer base,the department stated in the presentation.Apparently, the agency prefers to avoid all the attention that the Pentagon’s JEDI cloud procurement process got, and quietly go about its business.

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AWS tags US$235 million to expand its cloud infrastructure in Latin America

Article | February 10, 2020

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is raising its stake on cloud computing infrastructure in Latin America. Proof of this is that the IT company will use R$1 billion (around US$235 million) to expand its data center in Sao Paulo. These millions will be used for its Data Processing Center located in that part of Brazil. In addition, a portion of these US$235 million will also be used to increase the services it offers to both public and private parties.The move gives reason to suggest that AWS is upping the ante in the future of startups and tech in the region that rely on cloud services to develop their own products.It launched its cloud center in Brazil in 2011 but it’ll be getting some beefing up thanks to these funds. Moreover, AWS has two Edge networks in São Paulo and two in Rio de Janeiro. As well as one in each of the following cities: Bogotá (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Santiago (Chile).The objective of all of this is to be the region’s prime provider of cloud infrastructure and beat out its competition AKA, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure.

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CLOUD SECURITY

Cloud Automation Use Cases Every IT Professional Needs to Know

Article | July 19, 2022

Continuous intelligence (CI) relies on the real-time analysis of streaming data to produce actionable insights in milliseconds to seconds. Such capabilities have applications throughout a business. In today’s dynamic marketplace, new CI applications that use data from various sources at any given time might be needed on very short notice.The challenge is how to have the flexibility to rapidly develop and deploy new CI applications to meet fast-changing business requirements. A common approach employed today is to use a dynamic architecture that delivers access to data, processing power, and analytics capabilities on demand. In the future, solutions also will likely incorporate artificial intelligence applications to complement the benefits of traditional analytics. Increasingly, cloud-native is the architecture of choice to build and deploy AI-embedded CI applications. A cloud-native approach offers benefits to both the business and developers. Cloud-native applications or services are loosely coupled with explicitly described dependencies.

Read More
CLOUD SECURITY

How Is Cloud Communication Enhancing Mobility and Productivity in Your Business?

Article | August 4, 2022

Microsoft currently features old-school solutions that are growing relatively slowly (Office and Windows) and new cloud solutions that are growing tremendously (Dynamics 365 and Azure). If the company stays in its current form, Microsoft stock will keep steadily advancing. But because the company’s total top and bottom lines are never going to increase much more than 30% or 35% per year, the shares are never going to deliver truly huge returns. But that would change if the company was to spin off its rapidly growing cloud businesses. In such a scenario, the current owners of Microsoft stock would receive shares in a cutting edge cloud services company (let’s call it Azure), and shares in a company focused on providing old, mostly PC-based software to businesses and consumers.

Read More
CPaaS,Cloud Communication,CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT

5 Epic Cloud Communications Solutions to Scale Your Business

Article | November 29, 2022

With the huge amounts of data in all fields, a future in the cloud is imperative to help deal with this explosion of data, especially in the field of intelligence technology. This is the reason why the US Central Intelligence Agency is updating its cloud technology. The agency has recently released a draft request for proposal for its Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract.The C2E tens of billions contract will be a multi-award commercial cloud computing contract with a five-year base period and two five-year options for a period of performance of up to 15 years, according to nextgov.com.In a March 2019 presentation by the Directorate of Digital Innovation, a division of the CIA, the department outlined its vision for C2E. It would be broad and include infrastructure, platform and software cloud services supporting a broad range of users, with a variety of security clearances and a worldwide presence, as reported by techcrunch.com. The principal C2E Program objective is to acquire cloud computing services directly from commercial cloud service providers with established records for innovation and operational excellence in cloud service delivery for a large customer base,the department stated in the presentation.Apparently, the agency prefers to avoid all the attention that the Pentagon’s JEDI cloud procurement process got, and quietly go about its business.

Read More

AWS tags US$235 million to expand its cloud infrastructure in Latin America

Article | February 10, 2020

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is raising its stake on cloud computing infrastructure in Latin America. Proof of this is that the IT company will use R$1 billion (around US$235 million) to expand its data center in Sao Paulo. These millions will be used for its Data Processing Center located in that part of Brazil. In addition, a portion of these US$235 million will also be used to increase the services it offers to both public and private parties.The move gives reason to suggest that AWS is upping the ante in the future of startups and tech in the region that rely on cloud services to develop their own products.It launched its cloud center in Brazil in 2011 but it’ll be getting some beefing up thanks to these funds. Moreover, AWS has two Edge networks in São Paulo and two in Rio de Janeiro. As well as one in each of the following cities: Bogotá (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Santiago (Chile).The objective of all of this is to be the region’s prime provider of cloud infrastructure and beat out its competition AKA, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft’s Azure.

Read More
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Spotlight

Octo Consulting Group

At Octo, the difference is clear. It's in our DNA. We're a want-it-more, obsessed-with-client-success consulting firm. We're hungry for results and stop at nothing to deliver on every engagement.

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CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD COMPLIANCE AND AUDIT

MariaDB’s New SkySQL Release Reimagines How Companies Control Cloud Database Spend

Businesswire | March 31, 2023

MariaDB plc (NYSE: MRDB) today announced the immediate availability of a new release of MariaDB SkySQL, a second generation cloud database service. SkySQL offers fully managed databases including its flagship distributed SQL product MariaDB Xpand for maximum resilience and scalability. The release brings new innovation that lets organizations better manage their cloud database costs. SkySQL now enables autoscaling, which scales resources when demand surges and back down when demand normalizes to save costs. SkySQL also introduces serverless analytics to uncover insights on all current data without the need for ETL and all while paying for only what is used. Cloud database services offered by public cloud vendors were the first to bring open source databases, such as MariaDB, MySQL and PostgreSQL, to the cloud over a decade ago. These first generation cloud databases emphasized convenience and price, however, today’s world requires extraordinary resilience, elasticity and performance. Accelerated by the pandemic, at an unprecedented level, people have come to expect more from the services and applications they rely on every day – whether it's travel related, buying tickets to a concert, banking and more. Second generation cloud database services combine deep database expertise and cloud-native technology to run across clouds and achieve unstoppable performance. “At our heart, we are a database company,” said Jags Ramnarayan, SVP and SkySQL general manager at MariaDB plc. “We take that deep-rooted experience and knowledge to offer a cloud database service that is tuned and optimized for the most rigorous of situations. SkySQL brings hard-hitting capabilities such as distributed SQL with our Xpand database and we make it incredibly easy to operate, monitor, run analytics and scale elastically, all while being able to control your cloud spend. With other clouds, costs tend to only go one way, up. With SkySQL, we also let you shrink the cost footprint automatically when demand is low. For everyone looking for exceptional scalability and performance of MariaDB databases in the cloud, MariaDB SkySQL is the solution.” Autoscaling: Dynamically Adjust to Changes in Demand Unlike first generation cloud databases for MariaDB, SkySQL enables autoscaling of both compute and storage in response to changes in demand. Rules specify when autoscaling is triggered, for example when CPU utilization is above 75% over all replicas sustained for 30 minutes, then a new replica or node will be added to handle the increase. Similarly, when CPU utilization is less than 50% over all replicas for an hour, nodes or a replica is removed. Users always specify the top and bottom threshold so there are never any cost surprises. When paired with Xpand, MariaDB’s distributed SQL database, autoscaling means never having to worry about unexpected spikes in demand. Double, triple or quadruple the amount of users initially expected? No problem. Xpand on SkySQL with autoscale turned on will automatically add nodes to handle the increase in demand. Once demand is reduced, SkySQL will reduce nodes so you only pay for the resources needed. Serverless Analytics: Analyze All Current Data, Pay Only for What Is Used No ETL is required to do analytics! SkySQL enables operational analytics on active transactional data as well as external data sources using a serverless analytics layer powered by Apache Spark SQL. This approach removes any inconsistencies between an analytical view and a transactional view. Only pay for the CPU consumed for analytics without any need to provision compute. Data scientists also have access to an Apache Zeppelin notebook. The notebook is pre-loaded with examples that demonstrate ways to run analytics on data stored in SkySQL. It can also be used to discover database schemas, running queries on data stored in Amazon S3 and federating queries to join data across SkySQL databases and S3 object storage. Availability The new release of SkySQL is now generally available (GA) on AWS and Google Cloud, and includes updated MariaDB product versions: Xpand 6.1.1, Enterprise Server 10.6.12 and ColumnStore 6.3.1. Sign up for SkySQL. New users receive $500 in credits to start for free. No credit card is required. Supporting quotes "Our first look at the new MariaDB SkySQL release left us very impressed, especially with the user interface and autoscaling capabilities," said John Hundley, principal software engineer at Hughes Network Systems. "Our IoT smart power plugs are distributed nationally across hundreds of locations, collecting data from various plugs at any given time. The number of locations and data rates can vary significantly. The user interface is very easy to use and will give us a better view into our database usage. We expect autoscaling to help us in responding to our workload changes to ensure we have the right resources allocated." “Cloud-native DBMSs, such as MariaDB SkySQL, use dynamic compute and storage, making their use of resources more efficient and enabling them to deliver optimal performance,” said Carl Olofson, senior vice president, IDC. “The choice of which cloud-native DBMS to use comes down to fit. SkySQL offers scale and availability, the ability to run in multiple clouds, and to handle both OLTP and OLAP workloads. It also leverages skills that are transferable to all clouds. If these qualities are important to you, SkySQL is a cloud-native DBMS to consider.” About MariaDB MariaDB is a new generation cloud database company whose products are used by companies big and small, reaching more than a billion users through Linux distributions and have been downloaded over one billion times. Deployed in minutes and maintained with ease, leveraging cloud automation, our database products are engineered to support any workload, any cloud and any scale – all while saving up to 90% of proprietary database costs. Trusted by organizations such as Bandwidth, DigiCert, InfoArmor, Oppenheimer, Samsung, SelectQuote and SpendHQ, MariaDB’s software is the backbone of critical services that people rely on every day.

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CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS

GreenPages Introduces FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization Solution to Help Organizations Maximize IT Investments

Globenewswire | March 30, 2023

GreenPages, a nationally recognized leader in cloud and cybersecurity services, today introduced a new turnkey managed solution designed to help organizations maximize their IT budgets, gain greater insights into their technology and telecom capital expenditures (CapEx), and enhance their information security posture. The new FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization solution combines GreenPages proprietary FinOps software, Cloud Lighthouse, business VoIP tools from industry-leading telecom providers, and technology expense management (TEM) solutions into an "as a service" solution. CloudLighthouse is a cloud cost optimization tool that enables deep visibility into multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. Exclusively available from GreenPages, CloudLighthouse monitors Amazon, Microsoft, and hundreds of other IaaS and SaaS providers to deliver real-time usage reporting visualizations. “Arguably every business today, regardless of size or industry, is seeking greater visibility into, and control over, their IT expenditures,” said Jay Pasteris, CIO and CISO, GreenPages. “GreenPages’ new FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization bundle helps customers prioritize budget allocation on revenue-generating initiatives and consolidate cloud and telecom spending, while empowering IT, finance, and operations teams to utilize highly accurate and real-time spending data to make strategic business decisions. It also delivers greater visibility into shadow IT activities, which increase the chance that vulnerabilities go undetected by already overworked security teams.” The new bundle enables organizations to reallocate and consolidate IT vendors to maximize budgets, visualize cloud, telecom, and other business expenses to prioritize spending and accelerate business growth. This bundled solution is backed by GreenPages’ comprehensive professional services which continuously assess customers’ IT infrastructure and operational processes, ensuring the delivery of positive business outcomes mapped to their specific requirements. According to data from Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), CIOs and other IT decision-makers originally expected 8 percent budget growth going into 2022. However, ETR’s most recent Macro Survey of more than 1,500 IT decision-makers revealed that expected IT budgets for 2023 will grow at 4.6%. In this current cautious spending environment, GreenPages’ new bundles meet pent-up demand for solutions that will optimize cloud spending, and identify and eliminate vendor and solution redundancies. The new FinOps and Cloud Optimization bundles are offered in two different tiered options to match customers’ specific requirements and budgets, and support on-premise or remote environments. They include: Standard – For mid-market customers needing automated monitoring of their multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments and enterprise toll-free voice solutions for reliable and cost-effective customer and supplier communications, GreenPages is bundling Cloud Lighthouse with Enterprise Toll-Free solutions from top telecom providers. GreenPages will integrate these numbers into business phone and contact centers to support communication across world-class voice networks. Premium – For mid-market and large enterprises, this option includes all features from the Standard bundle along with automated Technology Expense Management Solutions. By bundling these three solutions, GreenPages is providing visibility and control over the ordering, auditing, and invoicing for customers’ IT and telecom assets—everything from the cloud servers and laptops to the mobile carriers that employee-owned devices connect to when traveling for business. About GreenPages GreenPages is an innovative, digital-first IT and cybersecurity firm that plans, implements, and manages secure, high-performance digital operating environments for leading companies nationwide. It is uniquely positioned with extensive technology expertise in security and cloud to deliver complete infrastructure solutions that enable companies to drive business outcomes and compete in the digitally-driven economy.

Read More

CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS

Latest Mirantis Container Cloud Simplifies Operations Across On-Premises and Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Businesswire | March 29, 2023

Mirantis, freeing developers to create their most valuable code, today announced the latest version of Mirantis Container Cloud (MCC) that simplifies operations with the ability to monitor applications performance with a new Grafana dashboard and to make updates to Kubernetes clusters with a one-click “upgrade” button from a web interface. MCC provides a single point of control that spans multiple clouds and infrastructure platforms making it possible to easily manage clusters on OpenStack, VMware, bare metal, and leading cloud providers. It takes advantage of open source StackLight to provide monitoring, logging, and alerting that delivers comprehensive visibility over the entire infrastructure. New features in the latest MCC 2.23 include the following to improve monitoring and managing cloud infrastructure. Applications performance dashboard using Grafana that provides a live graphical view. Log forwarding to third-party systems so that StackLight logs can be shared using Fluentd plugins. High Availability setup for iam-proxy in StackLight ensures that the StackLight identity and access management (IAM) proxy remains available and responsive, even in the event of a failure. Persistent Volume Claims (PVC) configuration to simplify management of data storage. Upgraded Ceph storage support to Pacific 16.2.11 for improved performance and security, plus compatibility with additional hardware. MCC 2.23 is optimized so that disruptions are minimized with cluster reboots during upgrades and maintenance to ensure that services remain available and downtime is kept to a minimum. “The latest version of MCC helps deliver a zero-touch, ZeroOps experience that eliminates a lot of the complexity and headaches that come with managing infrastructure,” said Sergey Goncharov, senior product manager, Mirantis. “Also, it provides flexibility to transition from on-premises infrastructure to a hybrid model that includes cloud platforms.” About Mirantis Mirantis helps organizations ship code faster on public and private clouds, increasing developer productivity by removing the stress of managing infrastructure. The company combines intelligent automation and cloud native expertise to provide a ZeroOps approach to managing and operating Kubernetes and cloud environments. Mirantis delivers a public cloud experience on any infrastructure, from the data center to the edge, with one cohesive cloud experience for complete app and DevOps portability, a single pane of glass, and automated full-stack lifecycle management, all based on open source.

Read More

CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD COMPLIANCE AND AUDIT

MariaDB’s New SkySQL Release Reimagines How Companies Control Cloud Database Spend

Businesswire | March 31, 2023

MariaDB plc (NYSE: MRDB) today announced the immediate availability of a new release of MariaDB SkySQL, a second generation cloud database service. SkySQL offers fully managed databases including its flagship distributed SQL product MariaDB Xpand for maximum resilience and scalability. The release brings new innovation that lets organizations better manage their cloud database costs. SkySQL now enables autoscaling, which scales resources when demand surges and back down when demand normalizes to save costs. SkySQL also introduces serverless analytics to uncover insights on all current data without the need for ETL and all while paying for only what is used. Cloud database services offered by public cloud vendors were the first to bring open source databases, such as MariaDB, MySQL and PostgreSQL, to the cloud over a decade ago. These first generation cloud databases emphasized convenience and price, however, today’s world requires extraordinary resilience, elasticity and performance. Accelerated by the pandemic, at an unprecedented level, people have come to expect more from the services and applications they rely on every day – whether it's travel related, buying tickets to a concert, banking and more. Second generation cloud database services combine deep database expertise and cloud-native technology to run across clouds and achieve unstoppable performance. “At our heart, we are a database company,” said Jags Ramnarayan, SVP and SkySQL general manager at MariaDB plc. “We take that deep-rooted experience and knowledge to offer a cloud database service that is tuned and optimized for the most rigorous of situations. SkySQL brings hard-hitting capabilities such as distributed SQL with our Xpand database and we make it incredibly easy to operate, monitor, run analytics and scale elastically, all while being able to control your cloud spend. With other clouds, costs tend to only go one way, up. With SkySQL, we also let you shrink the cost footprint automatically when demand is low. For everyone looking for exceptional scalability and performance of MariaDB databases in the cloud, MariaDB SkySQL is the solution.” Autoscaling: Dynamically Adjust to Changes in Demand Unlike first generation cloud databases for MariaDB, SkySQL enables autoscaling of both compute and storage in response to changes in demand. Rules specify when autoscaling is triggered, for example when CPU utilization is above 75% over all replicas sustained for 30 minutes, then a new replica or node will be added to handle the increase. Similarly, when CPU utilization is less than 50% over all replicas for an hour, nodes or a replica is removed. Users always specify the top and bottom threshold so there are never any cost surprises. When paired with Xpand, MariaDB’s distributed SQL database, autoscaling means never having to worry about unexpected spikes in demand. Double, triple or quadruple the amount of users initially expected? No problem. Xpand on SkySQL with autoscale turned on will automatically add nodes to handle the increase in demand. Once demand is reduced, SkySQL will reduce nodes so you only pay for the resources needed. Serverless Analytics: Analyze All Current Data, Pay Only for What Is Used No ETL is required to do analytics! SkySQL enables operational analytics on active transactional data as well as external data sources using a serverless analytics layer powered by Apache Spark SQL. This approach removes any inconsistencies between an analytical view and a transactional view. Only pay for the CPU consumed for analytics without any need to provision compute. Data scientists also have access to an Apache Zeppelin notebook. The notebook is pre-loaded with examples that demonstrate ways to run analytics on data stored in SkySQL. It can also be used to discover database schemas, running queries on data stored in Amazon S3 and federating queries to join data across SkySQL databases and S3 object storage. Availability The new release of SkySQL is now generally available (GA) on AWS and Google Cloud, and includes updated MariaDB product versions: Xpand 6.1.1, Enterprise Server 10.6.12 and ColumnStore 6.3.1. Sign up for SkySQL. New users receive $500 in credits to start for free. No credit card is required. Supporting quotes "Our first look at the new MariaDB SkySQL release left us very impressed, especially with the user interface and autoscaling capabilities," said John Hundley, principal software engineer at Hughes Network Systems. "Our IoT smart power plugs are distributed nationally across hundreds of locations, collecting data from various plugs at any given time. The number of locations and data rates can vary significantly. The user interface is very easy to use and will give us a better view into our database usage. We expect autoscaling to help us in responding to our workload changes to ensure we have the right resources allocated." “Cloud-native DBMSs, such as MariaDB SkySQL, use dynamic compute and storage, making their use of resources more efficient and enabling them to deliver optimal performance,” said Carl Olofson, senior vice president, IDC. “The choice of which cloud-native DBMS to use comes down to fit. SkySQL offers scale and availability, the ability to run in multiple clouds, and to handle both OLTP and OLAP workloads. It also leverages skills that are transferable to all clouds. If these qualities are important to you, SkySQL is a cloud-native DBMS to consider.” About MariaDB MariaDB is a new generation cloud database company whose products are used by companies big and small, reaching more than a billion users through Linux distributions and have been downloaded over one billion times. Deployed in minutes and maintained with ease, leveraging cloud automation, our database products are engineered to support any workload, any cloud and any scale – all while saving up to 90% of proprietary database costs. Trusted by organizations such as Bandwidth, DigiCert, InfoArmor, Oppenheimer, Samsung, SelectQuote and SpendHQ, MariaDB’s software is the backbone of critical services that people rely on every day.

Read More

CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS

GreenPages Introduces FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization Solution to Help Organizations Maximize IT Investments

Globenewswire | March 30, 2023

GreenPages, a nationally recognized leader in cloud and cybersecurity services, today introduced a new turnkey managed solution designed to help organizations maximize their IT budgets, gain greater insights into their technology and telecom capital expenditures (CapEx), and enhance their information security posture. The new FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization solution combines GreenPages proprietary FinOps software, Cloud Lighthouse, business VoIP tools from industry-leading telecom providers, and technology expense management (TEM) solutions into an "as a service" solution. CloudLighthouse is a cloud cost optimization tool that enables deep visibility into multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. Exclusively available from GreenPages, CloudLighthouse monitors Amazon, Microsoft, and hundreds of other IaaS and SaaS providers to deliver real-time usage reporting visualizations. “Arguably every business today, regardless of size or industry, is seeking greater visibility into, and control over, their IT expenditures,” said Jay Pasteris, CIO and CISO, GreenPages. “GreenPages’ new FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization bundle helps customers prioritize budget allocation on revenue-generating initiatives and consolidate cloud and telecom spending, while empowering IT, finance, and operations teams to utilize highly accurate and real-time spending data to make strategic business decisions. It also delivers greater visibility into shadow IT activities, which increase the chance that vulnerabilities go undetected by already overworked security teams.” The new bundle enables organizations to reallocate and consolidate IT vendors to maximize budgets, visualize cloud, telecom, and other business expenses to prioritize spending and accelerate business growth. This bundled solution is backed by GreenPages’ comprehensive professional services which continuously assess customers’ IT infrastructure and operational processes, ensuring the delivery of positive business outcomes mapped to their specific requirements. According to data from Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), CIOs and other IT decision-makers originally expected 8 percent budget growth going into 2022. However, ETR’s most recent Macro Survey of more than 1,500 IT decision-makers revealed that expected IT budgets for 2023 will grow at 4.6%. In this current cautious spending environment, GreenPages’ new bundles meet pent-up demand for solutions that will optimize cloud spending, and identify and eliminate vendor and solution redundancies. The new FinOps and Cloud Optimization bundles are offered in two different tiered options to match customers’ specific requirements and budgets, and support on-premise or remote environments. They include: Standard – For mid-market customers needing automated monitoring of their multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments and enterprise toll-free voice solutions for reliable and cost-effective customer and supplier communications, GreenPages is bundling Cloud Lighthouse with Enterprise Toll-Free solutions from top telecom providers. GreenPages will integrate these numbers into business phone and contact centers to support communication across world-class voice networks. Premium – For mid-market and large enterprises, this option includes all features from the Standard bundle along with automated Technology Expense Management Solutions. By bundling these three solutions, GreenPages is providing visibility and control over the ordering, auditing, and invoicing for customers’ IT and telecom assets—everything from the cloud servers and laptops to the mobile carriers that employee-owned devices connect to when traveling for business. About GreenPages GreenPages is an innovative, digital-first IT and cybersecurity firm that plans, implements, and manages secure, high-performance digital operating environments for leading companies nationwide. It is uniquely positioned with extensive technology expertise in security and cloud to deliver complete infrastructure solutions that enable companies to drive business outcomes and compete in the digitally-driven economy.

Read More

CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS

Latest Mirantis Container Cloud Simplifies Operations Across On-Premises and Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Businesswire | March 29, 2023

Mirantis, freeing developers to create their most valuable code, today announced the latest version of Mirantis Container Cloud (MCC) that simplifies operations with the ability to monitor applications performance with a new Grafana dashboard and to make updates to Kubernetes clusters with a one-click “upgrade” button from a web interface. MCC provides a single point of control that spans multiple clouds and infrastructure platforms making it possible to easily manage clusters on OpenStack, VMware, bare metal, and leading cloud providers. It takes advantage of open source StackLight to provide monitoring, logging, and alerting that delivers comprehensive visibility over the entire infrastructure. New features in the latest MCC 2.23 include the following to improve monitoring and managing cloud infrastructure. Applications performance dashboard using Grafana that provides a live graphical view. Log forwarding to third-party systems so that StackLight logs can be shared using Fluentd plugins. High Availability setup for iam-proxy in StackLight ensures that the StackLight identity and access management (IAM) proxy remains available and responsive, even in the event of a failure. Persistent Volume Claims (PVC) configuration to simplify management of data storage. Upgraded Ceph storage support to Pacific 16.2.11 for improved performance and security, plus compatibility with additional hardware. MCC 2.23 is optimized so that disruptions are minimized with cluster reboots during upgrades and maintenance to ensure that services remain available and downtime is kept to a minimum. “The latest version of MCC helps deliver a zero-touch, ZeroOps experience that eliminates a lot of the complexity and headaches that come with managing infrastructure,” said Sergey Goncharov, senior product manager, Mirantis. “Also, it provides flexibility to transition from on-premises infrastructure to a hybrid model that includes cloud platforms.” About Mirantis Mirantis helps organizations ship code faster on public and private clouds, increasing developer productivity by removing the stress of managing infrastructure. The company combines intelligent automation and cloud native expertise to provide a ZeroOps approach to managing and operating Kubernetes and cloud environments. Mirantis delivers a public cloud experience on any infrastructure, from the data center to the edge, with one cohesive cloud experience for complete app and DevOps portability, a single pane of glass, and automated full-stack lifecycle management, all based on open source.

Read More

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