Cloud News: VMware Adds Support for AWS to vCloud

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

VMware extends vCloud suite. VMware (VMW) unveiled an updated cloud management portfolio, including improved ability to manage multiple hypervisors and cloud assets at Amazon Web Services. VMware's new vCloud Automation Center 5.1 is based on DynamicOps, which VMware acquired in July 2012, VMware vCloud Automation Center 5.1 acts as a service governor, enabling policy-based provisioning across VMware-based private and public clouds, physical infrastructure, multiple hypervisors and Amazon Web Services.  Through a self-service portal – essentially a cross-cloud storefront – vCloud Automation Center will allow authorized administrators, developers or business users to request new IT services or manage existing resources  VMWorld Europe 2012 is underway this week in Barcelona.

IBM and AT&T deliver network-enabled cloud service. IBM and AT&T (T) announced a business agreement to delivery a secure, network-enabled cloud service that uses private networks rather than the public internet. The companies are combining AT&T virtual private networking and IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+ cloud capabilities with technology from AT&T Labs to create a new, fast and highly-secure shared cloud service, targeted at Fortune 1000 clients. Set to be live in early 2013 the new service marries AT&T's global network with the control and management capabilities of IBM's enterprise cloud. “As more organizations realize that cloud can be secure, easily managed, and a key part of their business strategy, cloud will quickly evolve as a tool for innovation rather than just for infrastructure,” said Erich Clementi, senior vice president, IBM Global Technology Services. “We believe this new service from two recognized leaders in cloud computing provides a compelling way for large organizations to exploit cloud’s transformational power.”

Polycom launches RealPresence CloudAXIS. Polycom (PLCM) unveiled its RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite, which lets Polycom customers easily add anyone on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk and other business video applications to their video conferences from a browser. RealPresence CloudAXIS is a suite of software that runs on the Polycom RealPresence Platform in private enterprise clouds or public clouds, and securely extends enterprise-grade video and content collaboration outside the firewall to other businesses and consumers via a browser. CloudAXIS Suite consists of a global directory presence engine, web client (supports HTML5-compatible browsers), and flexible resource broker that dynamically allocates and brokers crucial variables such as bandwidth, databases, sessions, and media to ensure an optimal user experience. “Today Polycom is transforming the industry with a solution that equips our customers to extend enterprise-grade video collaboration to everyone. We’re removing the impediments that have hampered video collaboration from becoming ubiquitous by allowing our customers to easily add anyone with a browser to their video and content collaboration sessions with the highest quality, reliability and security,” said Andy Miller, CEO, Polycom. “Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS solutions and our rich suite of open APIs give businesses and service providers the extended interoperability on which to build scalable cloud-based video collaboration services that we believe will deliver new value to customers and create significant new growth opportunities.”

AMD increases VMark record by 40 percent. AMD announced that a cluster of HP ProLiant BL465c Gen8 servers utilizing AMD Opteron 6200 Series processors has achieved the highest VMmark 2.1 score ever posted, representing a 40 percent increase over the next best score. VMmark is VMware’s popular multi-server benchmarking tool that measures platform performance and scalability of virtualized environments. A record score of 59.99 at 62 tiles represented a 40 percent increase in performance and a 72 percent increase in the number of virtual machines. For the benchmark, HP used 16 HP ProLiant BL465c Gen8 blades, each running two 16-core AMD Opteron 6278 processors yielding a total of 496 VMs with an average of 31 VMs per blade at a cost of $371 per virtual machine. “The new VMware benchmark is a further indication that AMD Opteron processors are ideally suited for virtualization,” said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, corporate vice president and general manager of Servers, AMD. “Servers using high core-count AMD Opteron 6200 series processors provide outstanding performance, reliability, scalability and affordable efficiency for virtualized IT environments and cloud computing.”