Profile of Charles Babcock

Editor At Large, InformationWeek Member Since: 11/15/2013
Author
Blog Posts: 2812
Posts: 216 Charles Babcock is an editor-at-large for InformationWeek, having joined the publication in 2003. He is the former editor-in-chief of Digital News, former software editor of Computerworld and former technology editor of Interactive Week. He is a graduate of Syracuse University where he obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism.

PayPal Finds Node.js Secret To Successful Makeover

3/17/2014
As PayPal transforms itself for transactions over smartphones and other mobile devices, it's found Node.js to be an indispensable tool.
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Red Hat's Stubbornness Will Keep OpenShift Alive

3/17/2014
Insiders have publicly bet against Red Hat's platform-as-a-service, but I say it will stand by OpenShift without regret.
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Amazon Prime Increases Price To $99

3/14/2014
Amazon Prime customers get free deliveries and instant streaming video downloads. But will they accept a $20 price hike?
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VMware Virtual SAN Move, Explained

3/12/2014
VMware seeks to dominate virtual storage with Virtual SAN as, at the same time, it gains ground in network virtualization.
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Red Hat Adds Microsoft .Net To OpenShift

3/10/2014
Red Hat tries to catch Cloud Foundry by adding .Net and SQL Server capabilities to its open source PaaS project.
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DigitalOcean Gets $37.1 Million For Cloud Expansion

3/6/2014
Fast-growing cloud startup plans to hire more engineers and build new data centers.
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Cloud Crossroads: Which Way PaaS?

3/6/2014
As allies and competitors line up behind the new Cloud Foundry Foundation, where does that leave Red Hat and its support of OpenStack and Project Solum?
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IBM Watson Goes On Silicon Valley Grand Tour

3/6/2014
IBM execs tout Watson-as-a-Service, venture funding to tech startups in California.
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VMware Pursues Federal Cloud Contracts

3/4/2014
VMware seeks FedRAMP authority to offer cloud services to federal agencies, will offer them from data centers run by Carpathia.
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VMware Recruits Amazon Exec For vCloud Hybrid Service

3/3/2014
VMware steps up competition with Amazon Web Services by hiring away its international technology evangelist.
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9 Worst Cloud Security Threats

3/3/2014
Leading cloud security group lists the "Notorious Nine" top threats to cloud computing in 2013; most are already known but defy 100% solution.
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CloudSigma: One Tool For Many Cloud Workloads

2/28/2014
Swiss cloud service supplier CloudSigma, in partnership with CompatibleOne, lets customers provision and track multiple cloud workloads through a single interface.
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Cloud Security Needs More Layers: HyTrust

2/27/2014
Eric Chiu, co-founder of HyTrust, says cloud operations will require "layered security" and encrypted virtual machines when at rest.
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CenturyLink Pursues Big Data, High Traffic Workloads

2/26/2014
Adds new set of Hyperscale servers equipped with SSDs to address most ambitious public cloud users.
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VMware Expands vCloud Hybrid Service To UK

2/25/2014
VMware opens first overseas vCloud Hybrid Service datacenter to give European customers faster response times, better compliance with national data protection laws.
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IBM BlueMix: PaaS Play, Explained

2/25/2014
With BlueMix, IBM gives customers a cloud path for legacy apps. Here's how SoftLayer, Cloud Foundry, and WebSphere tools fit in.
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Verizon Cloud Adds CloudBees PaaS

2/24/2014
Verizon Cloud is still in the process of revamping itself into a cloud service competitor. CloudBees will add a deployment platform.
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Rimini Street Ends Oracle Software Hosting

2/21/2014
In response to court judgment, third-party support supplier Rimini Street tells customers to move Oracle software back into their own datacenters.
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How One Amazon Cloud Customer Gains Operations Visibility

2/20/2014
Wattpad uses a combination of three monitoring systems to get the insight it needs to keep its busy, AWS-powered website humming.
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VMware's AirWatch Buy: Last Piece Of Mobile Puzzle?

2/19/2014
VMware has struggled to bring end users under the authority of its x86 virtualized datacenter. AirWatch may be the missing element.
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Meet iPaaS: Gartner Ranks New Cloud Service Pioneers

2/19/2014
Gartner creates new cloud category -- integration platform-as-a-service -- and starts tracking a new class of service providers.
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VMware, Google Team On Chromebooks

2/13/2014
Unlikely partners team to offer Desktop-as-a-Service on Google Chromebooks. Will pricing lure users to move away from Windows XP systems?
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SOASTA Wins Olympics IT Testing Role

2/12/2014
SOASTA gained experience in the London and Vancouver Olympics; its cloud-based testing will shape the next 10 years of Olympics IT.
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DigitalOcean Expands Developer Cloud To Singapore

2/11/2014
Upstart service provider opens sixth datacenter, plans for new UK facility and more developer tools.
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VMware Navigates High-Wire Act

2/10/2014
VMware shows strong profits in fourth quarter, renewed strength as IT spending revives. Commoditization? What commoditization?
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IBM Taps Actifio For Cloud Storage Service

2/7/2014
SmartCloud Data Virtualization puts virtualized copies of application data in the cloud, then makes it available wherever it's most needed.
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Google, Amazon & Microsoft: Cloud Battle Just Changed

2/6/2014
Google is Amazon's only real cloud threat, say observers including Cloudscaling's Randy Bias. But under new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, that's likely to morph.
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Fidelity 'Bridge' Rack Makes Open Hardware Real

2/5/2014
Fidelity Investments works with ElectroRack, Delta Computer, and CPS to offer an innovative new rack design to the Open Compute Project.
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Open-Source Hardware: Prepare For Disruption

2/3/2014
Could open-source hardware shake up the datacenter the way Linux disrupted software? From Facebook to Fidelity, a few big companies say this concept works.
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Amazon Posts 20% Revenue Growth, Stock Drops

1/31/2014
Amazon.com and its Web Services unit grew in the fourth quarter of 2013 but not enough to please investors -- Amazon stock dropped 9.5%.
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Open Hardware Is Like Linux: True Or False?

1/31/2014
Examine this analogy closely. Open-source hardware and open-source software involve different processes with different levels of user participation.
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Open-Source Cloud Hardware Grows Up Fast

1/30/2014
Open Compute Project picks up key new members, sets more ambitious goals, and shows its multi-faceted, multi-chip side at annual summit.
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Microsoft Makes Azure Server Design Open-Source

1/29/2014
Open-source hardware movement wins a surprise supporter. Microsoft joins Open Compute project, shares its server design ideas.
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Apprenda 5.0 Eases Cloud Application Scaling

1/28/2014
PaaS enables moving legacy Java and .Net applications to the cloud, brings slider interface to automatically scaling server instances as demand rises and falls.
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Amazon Cuts Cloud Storage Prices, Adds Server Instances

1/23/2014
Amazon Web Services will cut Elastic Block Store prices by up to 50% and Simple Storage Service by an average of 14%, plus add two new M3 virtual servers.
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Microsoft Researchers Seek Performance-Based Cloud Pricing Patent

1/17/2014
Cloud pricing scheme based on performance levels, instead of units of time, would be interesting play against rivals such as Amazon Web Services.
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IBM Bets Big On Global Datacenter Network

1/17/2014
IBM will spend $1.2 billion and build out 40 SoftLayer-based datacenters to deliver enterprise cloud services. Locales range from China to Mexico.
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IBM Stuffs Flash Into Next-Generation Servers

1/16/2014
IBM moves flash storage inside the box -- 12.8 TB of it -- to work alongside RAM and cut data movement latencies.
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Rackspace Names Taylor Rhodes President

1/14/2014
Former chief customer officer aims to shake off investor doubts about Rackspace's cloud service fortunes.
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Dropbox Takes Blame For Cloud Outage

1/14/2014
Post-mortem analysis says Friday's cloud service outage was caused by bad script in routine maintenance update.
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CenturyLink Eases Cloud Foundry Deployments

1/9/2014
CenturyLink embraces Bosh software support from Tier3 acquisition, aims for a greater piece of the PaaS pie owned by Amazon, Microsoft, Google.
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VMware Datacenter Growth Far From Over

1/8/2014
Some industry watchers say the virtualization wave is nearly done, but I disagree.
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IBM Builds A Better OpenStack Scheduler

1/8/2014
IBM's Platform scheduler uses more efficient resource management to improve on OpenStack's own scheduler operations.
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eLynx Maps Mortgage Docs Move To Public Cloud

1/6/2014
Provider of mortgage documents and digital signatures says banks and mortgage lenders will follow its move to public cloud.
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OpenSSL Says Breach Did Not Involve Corrupted Hypervisor

1/3/2014
Hosting provider's compromised password system, not a hacked hypervisor, led to defacing of OpenSSL.org site, site reps say – after VMware cries foul.
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6 Cloud Upstarts To Watch

1/2/2014
Watch out, Amazon Web Services. These younger cloud companies bring new architectures and provisioning methods to the game.
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How DigitalGlobe Handles 2 Petabytes Of Satellite Data Yearly

12/30/2013
DigitalGlobe's soon-to-be six satellites gather data at a freakish pace -- capturing images of everything from natural disasters to shipping containers in ports.
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Amazon Boosts High-Speed I/O Instances With SSDs

12/24/2013
Amazon Web Services follows Rackspace, Colt, and Digital Ocean in ramping up high I/O servers with solid state disks.
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Red Hat On A Roll

12/20/2013
Red Hat is still open-source's $1 billion baby, and then some. Billings take off, suggesting the Linux company is heading for a strong conclusion to fiscal 2014.
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Why Amazon Faces Challenges In China

12/19/2013
Amazon Web Services will kick off cloud services in China in the first quarter of 2014. It can learn from the hurdles Microsoft and Google have jumped.
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Amazon Kinesis: Fast Analytics On Streaming Data

12/18/2013
AWS Kinesis service takes in thousands of data streams, processes them on an Amazon cluster, and offers results in near real time.
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Rackspace Launches Online DevOps Service

12/16/2013
DevOps Automation Service lets a development team rapidly expand its development infrastructure without taking on more systems management tasks.
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Microsoft Partners To Extend Azure Reach

12/13/2013
Like VMware, Microsoft looks to a set of partners to build out Azure-compatible cloud services and offer them on a regional basis.
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Joyent Launches Ecommerce Solution Set

12/12/2013
Cloud service provider offers preconfigured ecommerce solutions for retailers; targets Amazon customers.
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta Debuts

12/12/2013
Red Hat Enterprise Linux adds integration with Windows and VMware's vSphere environments, takes first steps toward hybrid cloud ops.
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Oracle Embraces OpenStack

12/11/2013
Oracle bows to the growing Open Stack trend, promises to integrate its product line with the open-source project.
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Verizon To Buy EdgeCast Content Delivery Network

12/10/2013
Verizon Digital Media is adding a major content delivery network to its rich media capabilities.
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Internap Taps Solid-State Storage For Cloud Service

12/9/2013
Hosting services giant enters cloud sector, aims to differentiate itself from competitors with high-speed, performance-guaranteed block storage.
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RedHat Takes On VMware For PaaS Crown

12/6/2013
Red Hat maneuvers to get its OpenShift platform into as many enterprises as possible, with an eye to private cloud dominance.
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Google Attacks Amazon With Cloud Storage Prices

12/5/2013
Google's 60% cut in block-storage pricing is a move intended to unseat Amazon's dominance in cloud infrastructure.
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Mobile Sites Keep Shoppers Waiting

12/4/2013
Compuware's Internet traffic monitoring found mobile sites were two seconds slower than during 2012's Thanksgiving shopping weekend.
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Google Compute Cloud Challenges Amazon

12/3/2013
Google's Compute Engine comes out of preview, with Google touting lower pricing and "transparent maintenance."
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HP Plans Free Propel Cloud Services

12/3/2013
HP borrows the freemium concept to launch three products for IT service automation, often a first step in movement toward private cloud.
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Rackspace CTO Engates Analyzes HealthCare.gov Meltdown

12/2/2013
John Engates went to the White House Monday to get a closer look at what went wrong with HealthCare.gov. Unlike actor Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith, Engates came away from Washington saying this problem can be fixed.
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Docker Container System Works With All Linuxes

11/27/2013
New release of open-source Docker software container system eliminates need for AnotherUnion Filesystem to move apps from one flavor of Linux to another.
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HP, Cisco, Microsoft Ranked Top Private Cloud Vendors

11/26/2013
See who else made Forrester's list of top private cloud software suppliers.
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Amazon Web Services Handles More Business Critical Apps

11/26/2013
Survey at Amazon's Re:Invent event shows that many AWS users are moving from test and development to business critical apps.
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Photobucket Pictures Its Future On OpenStack

11/22/2013
Cisco's version of an OpenStack private cloud helps Photobucket ease implementation and management of networking issues.
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CenturyLink Buys Tier 3 To Accelerate Cloud Roadmap

11/20/2013
Tier 3 founder Jared Wray, named CenturyLink Cloud CTO, will help modernize CenturyLink's cloud services with more automation and self-service features.
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Kaiser Shifts To Preventive Care In Mobile Apps

11/20/2013
Kaiser executives highlight potential for interactive, preventive care through a new generation of mobile apps -- but how to get patients to opt in?
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Windows Azure Gaining 1,000 Customers Per Day

11/20/2013
IaaS for Azure and inclusion of cloud use in enterprise agreements has helped Microsoft's cloud services gain momentum, says general manager Mike Neil.
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Genomics Startup Counts On Amazon Cloud

11/20/2013
Courtagen taps AWS to handle the terabytes of data produced in analyzing individuals' genes to pinpoint disease-causing abnormalities and best treatments.
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Nasuni: Versioning File System For Cloud

11/19/2013
Nasuni's UniFS uses stream of snapshots to create a versioned file system in the enterprise and in the cloud.
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Amazon's CIA Win Hurt More Than IBM's Pride

11/19/2013
By winning a $600 million CIA contract, Amazon Web Services has positioned itself as equal to IBM in building secure systems and superior in large-scale, elastic systems.
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NASA, Amazon Launch Earth Data Repository

11/18/2013
NASA has uploaded terabytes of earth-science satellite data to Amazon Web Services, with more to come, to aid researchers and developers.
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Pivotal Launches Cloud App Development Platform

11/18/2013
Pivotal One Platform, based on VMware's open source Cloud Foundry, comes with four application services on top.
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Amazon Adds PostgreSQL, Big C3 Servers

11/15/2013
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels announces PostgreSQL database service, new instance types, and the use of solid state disks to speed I/Os.
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70% Of Enterprise Infrastructure Offsite By 2018: Study

11/15/2013
In five years, outsourced cloud services will dominate as companies abandon the on-premises model, says the telecommunications company CenturyLink.
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Microsoft Pins Azure Slowdown On Cloud Software Fault

11/15/2013
Microsoft Azure GM Mike Neil explains the Oct. 29-30 slowdown and the reason behind the widespread failure.
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How PayPal Got Its Swagger Back

11/15/2013
PayPal CTO explains how the move to OpenStack and a more agile development process put the mojo back in PayPal's product line.
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Amazon Launches 'WorkSpaces' For Desktop Users

11/14/2013
VMware wants to move into cloud computing? Guess what, Amazon's moving into desktop virtualization.
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Pivotal Launches Cloud App Development Platform

11/13/2013
Pivotal One Platform, based on VMware's open source Cloud Foundry, comes with four application services on top.
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NASA, Amazon Launch Earth Data Repository

11/12/2013
NASA has uploaded terabytes of earth-science satellite data to Amazon Web Services, with more to come to aid researchers and developers.
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Amazon Again Beats IBM For CIA Cloud Contract

11/8/2013
IBM maneuvering over 10-year, $600 million CIA contract doomed its protest, in eyes of court.
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Rackspace Adds SSDs To Cloud Servers

11/7/2013
Rackspace adds solid state disks, more RAM and faster processors to boost performance of its standard cloud server offering.
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Amazon Cuts Some M3 Compute Instances 10%

11/5/2013
Amazon Web Services price cut affects M3 extra-large and double-extra-large virtual servers, which are core offerings popular with database users.
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CSC Gains Cloud Management Capabilities With ServiceMesh

11/4/2013
In buying ServiceMesh, CSC gets a set of tools and deployment platform for bridging enterprise data centers and its IaaS.
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VMware, Mirantis Put OpenStack On vSphere

11/4/2013
Mirantis' Boris Renski, who opposed VMware's seat at the OpenStack table, announces partnership to build OpenStack private clouds on vSphere virtualized servers.
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Cisco Speeds OpenStack Infrastructure

11/4/2013
Cisco offers three accelerator packages for OpenStack implementations as it seeks to give its Unified Computing Systems servers role in private clouds.
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IBM Shifts SmartCloud Customers To SoftLayer

10/31/2013
IBM customers have been notified to move by Jan. 31; IBM SoftLayer unit operates 13 data centers.
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Amazon Plans 4th California Retail Distribution Facility

10/30/2013
Online retail giant seeks to foster faster deliveries, including same-day fresh groceries, through modern fulfillment centers.
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Nebula, GigaSpaces Team To Ease OpenStack App Migrations

10/30/2013
Nebula configures the hardware, while GigaSpaces' Cloudify helps prepare complex legacy apps to migrate into an OpenStack private cloud.
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Docker Finds Open Source Success

10/29/2013
PaaS firm formerly known as dotCloud changes its name to Docker after developers embrace open source Docker.org project.
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NTT Invests $875M In U.S. Colocation, Cloud Companies

10/28/2013
Japanese telecom giant will pay $525 million for Virtela enterprise communications and $350 million for an 80% stake in RagingWire data centers.
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Bromium, 'Microvisor' Champion, Raises $40 Million More

10/28/2013
Bromium's third round of financing brings total to $75.7 million as company positions itself for rapid growth.
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VMware Killed By Commoditization? Not So Fast

10/25/2013
The commoditization of the virtualization market isn't happening as quickly as Wall Street analysts assume. Here's how VMware stays three steps ahead of commoditization's noose.
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Amazon Web Services Revenue: New Details

10/24/2013
Amazon reports higher-than-expected revenues in third quarter. Service revenues from AWS represent 84% of the monies in Amazon's long-shrouded "other" balance sheet category, analysts said.
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Google App Engine Swings, But OpenStack Is King

10/24/2013
Cloud users voted with their feet, made OpenStack topics the most popular sessions at Cloud Connect 2013. Here's what they learned.
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Cloud Vs. Tough Problems From Business To Weather

10/23/2013
ZipCar founder Robin Chase and other Cloud Connect 2013 speakers explain how cloud can help solve pressing world problems.
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Cloud Lets You Test Business Ideas Faster

10/22/2013
Cloud offers a low-risk, high-reward way to rapidly test new business ideas, much like successful fighter pilots can quickly adapt and outpace opponents, says BMC's David Roberts at Cloud Connect.
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