Cloud News: Cisco and Xerox, Amazon, SoftLayer

News from the cloud computing sector includes developments from Cisco and Xerox, Amazon and SoftLayer:

Xerox selects Cisco UCS for global cloud print services. Cisco (CSCO) announced that its Unified Computing System (UCS) handles more than 1 million Xerox and non-Xerox print devices worldwide and Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud offerings with Vblcok-for-Cloud.  A year ago Cisco and Xerox formed an alliance to deliver cloud-based services that combine network intelligence and print. Today, Xerox uses Cisco data center solutions so its global delivery centers can meet the fast-growing demand for cloud-based managed print services (MPS). These cloud services are also delivered using the Vblock platform, which combines Cisco UCS with EMC storage and VMware for virtualization, as well as Cisco Intelligent Automation software, to deliver Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud capabilities and Cisco Hosted Collaboration services. A new global delivery center deployment has resulted in accelerated performance of applications for MPS, improving response times; streamlining the environment by reducing the number of server service profiles by as much as 80 percent. “As the worldwide market leader for MPS, we’re continually looking for ways to bring new benefits to our customers. By using Cisco UCS to support our global MPS delivery network, we can quickly respond to the changing needs of our customers and offer them simplified data, new applications, and faster service. Cisco’s UCS is critical to managing the growing global demand for MPS,” said Andrew Morrison, senior vice president, Xerox MPS Business.

AWS now supports Windows software.  Amazon (AMZN) Web Services announced that the AWS Marketplace now supports software built on Microsoft Windows Server. Windows software titles can be deployed to the AWS Cloud, as well as hosting solutions from software vendors like MicroStrategy, Quest Software, and Parallels. The software can run on EC2 instances running Windows Server, including 2003 R2, 2008, 2008 R2 and 2012 editions of Windows Server. AWS also announced a new software development kit for Node.js that lets developers tap into the cost-effective, scalable, and reliable AWS cloud from their Node.js applications. AWS also now supports Amazon RDS Micro DB Instances in Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). This lets a customer provision a private, isolated section of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual network that you define.

SoftLayer and 10gen launch MongoDB systems.   SoftLayer and 10gen announced the general availability of new on-demand MongoDB production-class systems available across SoftLayer’s global cloud infrastructure. The companies collaborated to engineer the systems, including optimized hardware and OS configurations, automated deployment of multi-data center clusters, and integrated monitoring and support. MongoDB Cloud Subscriptions is a new offering from 10gen of certified pre-built MongoDB systems. SoftLayer’s MongoDB engineered systems include options from entry-level quad-core servers to powerful sixteen-core, high-performance computing nodes, all available on demand and in real-time via SoftLayer’s portal and API. “Our aim is for MongoDB to be available in combined offerings, so that the growing number of organizations that want to deploy in the cloud have an easy and scalable solution,” said Eliot Horowitz, CTO of 10gen. “We look forward to working with SoftLayer to bring this new service to market as a convenient and effective way to deploy big data workloads.”