Cloud News: Tidemark, Meraki

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

Tidemark raises $24 million.  Cloud performance analytics company Tidemark announced it has raised $24 million in new funding led by Redpoint Ventures with existing investors Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Dave Duffield, co-founder and co-CEO of Workday participating. With a total funding over $35 million Redpoint partner Geoff Yang will join Tidemark’s Board of Directors. With a focus on the enterprise its Performance Management platform delivers real-time, risk-adjusted metrics management; strategic, financial, operational planning and forecasting; and profitability modeling applications.

Meraki introduces cloud managed switches. Cloud Networking company Meraki announced the introduction of the all-new MS series cloud managed switches. Meraki also announced a dramatically expanded MX series cloud managed security appliances family, adding WAN optimization and introducing five new models. The new switches introduce 'virtual stacking' which provides centralized management of up to thousands of switch ports.  Meraki also announced a major expansion of its MX series cloud managed security appliances, adding WAN optimization and five new hardware models. The MX80, MX90 MX400, and MX600, are available for immediate order through Meraki authorized resellers. The MX60W will be available in the second quarter of 2012. Peet's Coffee and Tea deployed a Merai wireless LAN across all of its 193 retail locations. “As iPads and web applications increase the demands placed on networks, organizations are increasingly turning to cloud managed solutions to streamline their infrastructure,” said Kiren Sekar, V.P. of Marketing at Meraki. “We are thrilled that Peet’s selected Meraki for their next generation network, and we look forward to delivering an excellent experience to their IT staff, employees, and customers.”