Cloud News: Embrane, Dell, RightScale, Salesforce.com

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

Embrane virtualizes network services.  Embrane announced its strategy to help cloud service providers (CSPs) and enterprises build more agile networks for delivering cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).  The foundation of Embrane’s strategy is heleos, the industry’s first distributed software platform for virtualizing layer 4-7 network services. To build an elastic network services infrastructure heleos combines the performance, scalability and reliability of hardware appliances with the agility and simplicity of virtualized software-based solutions. "The cloud changes everything about the infrastructure for delivering business services," said Dante Malagrinò, co-founder and CEO of Embrane.  "While compute and storage architectures have been evolving to address new requirements, the network has never adapted. In fact, today the network is the bottleneck for broader cloud adoption. Embrane’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing by delivering the most agile platform for virtual network services."

Dell Boomi helps AAA move to the Cloud.  Dell announced that AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah auto club (AAA NCNU) has standardized on Dell Boomi to manage its business transition to the cloud. AAA NCNU is integrating more than 50 applications to facilitiate a reorganization of divisions using Dell Boomi AtomSphere. The organization evaluated integration appliances and hosted traditional integration solutions, but felt that Dell Boomi offered a more innovative cloud solution and better support throughout the evaluation process. "With so much of our business running in the cloud with data distributed between SaaS, legacy applications, databases from the insurance arm, and hosted applications, integrating the data with a cloud-based solution became imperative," said Soheil Zohreh, VP and CTO of AAA NCNU. "Dell Boomi offers us the ability to connect our key existing business technology seamlessly with a cloud based architecture, which met the vision and expectations of our CIO, Craig Butler."

RightScale and Logicworks partner.  RightScale and Logicworks announced they have joined forces to deliver a powerful solution to help enterprises simplify and manage both their public and private cloud resources. By integrating the RightScale Cloud Management Platform with Logicworks’ InfiniCloud and PowerCluster private cloud infrastructures, the companies are meeting the needs of enterprises that require high availability and compliance standards when moving mission-critical applications to the cloud. “When an enterprise requiring true high-availability or compliance moves to the cloud, one of their key challenges is finding a platform that meets the specific needs of their organization,” said Kenneth Ziegler, president and COO of Logicworks. “By pairing RightScale’s innovative management platform with Logicworks’ technical solutions and consultative, white glove customer service, clients benefit from an easy-to-manage combination of public cloud resources plugged directly into their own dedicated, private availability-zone, helping them strike the right balance between dynamic, pay-as-you go resources and dedicated solutions for their steady-state, predictable-load or sensitive data.”

Salesforce.com acquires Rypple.  Salesforce.com (CRM) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Rypple, a cloud-based social performance management company. With this entry into the human capital management (HCM) market Salesforce.com will extend the value of its core products  and will re-launch Rypple as "Successforce". “Salesforce.com and Rypple share a vision for extending the social enterprise to transform the way we work,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. “The next generation of HCM is not just about a cloud delivery model, it’s about a fundamentally better way to recruit, manage and empower employees in a social world.”