Cloud News: Oracle, Gluster, SOASTA, Blue Coat

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

Oracle introduces cloud file system. Oracle (ORCL) introduced the Oracle Cloud File System, extending cloud characteristics to storage by enabling more effective storage pooling through a network accessible elastic storage cloud.  The system is comprised of Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager. Cloud File System includes snapshots and replication, data access security and encryption and aggregate management operations via file tags. "Organizations can move beyond expensive and difficult to manage and scale hardware and storage silos to a highly available, scalable cloud environment that adapts to change in workloads to meet their service level objectives," said Angelo Pruscino, senior vice president of product development at Oracle.  The Oracle Cloud File System is available today and is priced at $5,000 per processor.

Gluster introduces scale-out NAS virtual appliances.  Open source storage solution provider Gluster announced Gluster Virtual Storage Appliances for VMware and Amazon Web Services.  The new appliances give enterprises the ability to treat physical storage as a virtualized, standardized, and scale-on-demand pool in much the same way that they treat computing resources today. The Virtual Storage Appliances are tailored for virtualized and cloud environments, easy to deploy and scale, and support multiple platforms. "Virtualization technology is at the heart of cloud computing, but unfortunately the storage side of the equation has not kept pace with computing,” said AB Periasamy, co-founder and CTO of Gluster. “Gluster’s new virtual storage appliances play a crucial role in closing the server-storage virtualization gap and deliver a solution that is tailor-made for cloud and virtualized environments. Gluster Virtual Storage Appliances will be generally available on February 15th.

SOASTA CloudTest Pro.  SOASTA launched CloudTest Pro, a new appliance that delivers a platform for testing the performance of Web and mobile applications. CloudTest Pro integrates heterogeneous clouds and other resources to test even the largest consumer-facing web and mobile applications.  Designed for businesses with internal testing teams, it supports continuous testing in the lab and in live production environments, testing from internal and external sources and real-time resolution of performance issues. “Effective Web site performance testing can reach a massive scale, and it’s important that customers have the freedom to efficiently and securely utilize their own internal infrastructure, as well as public clouds and test communities, to get the resources they need for internal and external performance testing. CloudTest Pro is breaking new ground not just for performance testing, but for the industry, as it helps our customers realize the potential of cloud computing," said SOASTA CEO Tom Lounibos. CloudTest Pro is available as an appliance with an annual subscription,  on-demand as a complete performance testing service, and as an all-in-one performance testing appliance.

Blue Coat introduces cloud service. Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) introduced the Blue Coat Cloud Service, a scalable Internet-delivered service that leverages proven Blue Coat technology and the company’s collaborative WebPulse community of more than 70 million users. The Web Security Module offers a cloud subscription module for the service, bringing the Blue Coat enterprise-class technology to a broader group of organizations. The rapid evolution of Web-based threats, coupled with a shift in organizational structure, demands a security solution that can respond in real time to protect all users, all the time, anywhere,” said Jim Vogt, senior vice president and general manager of the Cloud Business Unit at Blue Coat Systems. “The Blue Coat Cloud Service does just that, extending the reach of our enterprise-class leading Web security technology to all organizations.” The Web Security Module for the Blue Coat Cloud Service is now in beta and will be generally available in the company’s fourth fiscal quarter, which ends April 30, 2011.