Roundup: Akamai, Telx, Hexagrid, Verizon, PDI

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

Akamai enables NobelPrize.org.  Akamai (AKAM) announced that Nobelprize.org, the official web site of the Nobel Prize, has partnered with Akamai Technologies, to become cloud enabled by using Akamai´s Dynamic Site Accelerator (DSA) for distribution and offloading the web site, as well as using HD Streaming for video on demand delivery. During the 2010 Nobel Prize announcements, the news captured worldwide attention and the live webcasts culminated in a total of 162,000 simultaneous unique visitors. The next announcements in October 2011 will reach a peak of simultaneous viewers, as well as another in December as they stream Nobel Lectures and the Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies. "The Nobel Prize captures international interest and we have experienced a continued increase in web site visitors during the past several years," said Hans Mehlin, Director of Technology at Nobelprize.org. "We want to ensure that our visitors have a good experience – no matter where in the world they are located. Delivery of Nobel Prize announcements and other material on various media platforms has to be reliable. By using the Akamai DSA solution for distribution, we can confidently manage visitor peaks and provide our worldwide audience with a better experience."

Telx and Hexagrid partner for hosted cloud solutions.  Telx  announced a strategic alliance with Hexagrid Computing, a developer of cloud enablement software solutions. The non-exclusive relationship empowers Telx's managed service provider (MSP) and enterprise colocation customers in all 15 Cloud Connection Centers to build their own customized cloud environments using highly scalable, secure private cloud infrastructure and connectivity supplied by Telx's Interconnection services and Hexagrid's innovative cloud computing platform. The solution combines carrier-dense centers from Telx and the VxDatacenter cloud from Hexagrid, which optimizes kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) hypervisor technology as a comprehensive Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. "As the cloud market continues to mature and more organizations look to strategically build and position clouds throughout the world, we believe it is imperative for organizations to have a strong connection backbone and data center partner to rely on," said Joseph Seibel, CFO and VP of Strategic Development at Hexagrid Computing. "We are very excited to announce our partnership with Telx for delivering enterprise class private hosted clouds that only a provider with such a highly connected data center environment can offer.

Verizon Wholesale selected by Global Gossip.  Verizon (VZ) announced that Australia-based Global Gossip has selected Verizon Global Wholesale for a robust cloud computing platform that supports the worldwide communications services provider's 300 sites across Australia, Europe, Fiji, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S.  The platform will be delivered through Verizon's Computing-as-a-Service and gives Global Gossip the flexibility to quickly accommodate new functionality and growth. "As business needs evolve, companies like Global Gossip rely on Verizon Global Wholesale to deliver the high-performance cloud services they need, freeing them to focus on their core goal of providing quality services to their own customers," said Patrick Sullivan, sales leader for Asia-Pacific at Verizon Global Wholesale.

PDI selected by PeakColo. Power Distribution Incorporated (PDI) introduced PeakColo as its newest customer. PeakColo is utilizing the company’s newly announced PowerMap solution across its five data centers to automatically upload individual circuit-based power statistics and secure power management information in the cloud—eliminating the need for handheld meters. Delivered from the data centers in Denver and Phoenix PeakColo offers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). “Energy costs are quickly getting out of control. When you combine rising prices with the expanding size of today’s data centers, it’s easy to see why efficient energy management is so critical,” said Luke Norris, Founder/CEO of PeakColo. “To help our customers maximize their investments in virtualization and cloud services, we needed to keep a close eye on our pass-through energy costs. That’s why we turned to PDI.”