Cloud News: CA Technologies, RightScale, VMware

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the cloud computing sector:

RightScale Launches Multicloud Marketplace.  RightScale announced the launch of its MultiCloud Marketplace, a clearing house for ready-to-run, customizable software designed according to best practices for launching and managing servers in the cloud.  As an open market for software vendors they will offer end-user applications, middleware components, web and application servers, and more.  The cloud-ready solutions will utilize RightScale's ServerTemplate technology for an automated multi-cloud infrastructure, enabling cloud servers to be launched and dynamically configured at run time without any manual work. "Cloud infrastructure delivers unprecedented agility, but launching and managing applications in the cloud with high operational excellence is still complex and time consuming," said Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale. "That’s why we built the MultiCloud Marketplace – to provide our users access to cloud-ready software deployments where the operational excellence is already built-in, using RightScale’s and our partners’ years of experience launching and operating large scale cloud deployments. In addition, we’re delighted to see that the MultiCloud Marketplace has become a true open community in that individual users are contributing also."

CA Technologies Offer Software Through Verizon's Cloud. CA Technologies (CA) and Verizon (VZ) announced that CA Technologies will offer its IT management software through Verizon’s flagship cloud offering, Computing as a Service (CaaS). To begin the cloud offering CA will host their project and portfolio management solution, CA Clarity PPM. “Cloud computing is a core business for Verizon, and its reliability and security are strategic value-adds for customers," said Adam Elster, general manager, Services, Support and Education Sales at CA Technologies. "CA Technologies recognizes that there is a growing trend for customers to use our software in an on-demand, SaaS delivery model, but we also need to address the needs of customers who want the control they get by owning the software license – without the burden and cost of managing the application and its infrastructure."  In the Verizon cloud, CA Technologies customers will retain their licenses to the software.

VMware acquires Socialcast. VMware (VMW) announced the acquisition of Socialcast, a leading provider of social collaboration solutions for the enterprise. Continuing VMware's modern end-user computing model vision Socialcast is delivered as a hosted service, private cloud implementation, or via an on-premise solution and is used by some of the world's largest enterprises.  "For enterprise collaboration to improve business outcomes it can't just be a feature in a single application. Organizations need a new social collaboration fabric across the applications people already work with. Socialcast combines real-time activity streams that are contextually integrated within existing enterprise systems. This is the new way to work," said Brian Byun, vice president and general manager, Cloud Applications at VMware.