Cloud computing is spreading like wildfire. The number of enterprises
moving their IT operations to the cloud is tremendously growing. Established
vendors like Salesforce, Amazon and Google, including other startup firms that
provide tools and services for cloud computing continues to increase and
clamors for attention.
In this emerging industry, here are the lists of 15 promising cloud
computing vendors based on cloud security and storage to apps and
infrastructure offerings that should be on your radar screen.
Zimory, a Berlin-based company, offers a technology suite for
enterprises to transition virtual data centers into cloud-based infrastructure.
The company aims to provide high-quality cloud solution while maximizing
efficiency as it taps into underused resources. Zimory’s open-technology can
scale up to thousands of machines and connect with multiple clouds. The
firms Carrier Grade Cloud Computing portfolio is billed to be a comprehensive
solution for deploying and managing secure and scalable public, private and
hybrid clouds.
Abiquo is one of the most promising upstarts in the cloud computing
arena. It boasts of a comprehensive hypervisor support portfolio including
leading vendors such as Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Zend. The firm
offers a permission-based hierarchy that enables enterprises to forge public,
private or hybrid clouds spanning data centers on- and off-premises. It
provides a support system to remove vendor lock-in problem through a
drag-and-drag conversion for virtual machines from one hypervisor to another.
Standing Cloud provides enterprises with a simple proposition: “We do
the sys admin so you don’t have to. Sure, you could handle Web application
management. But why?” The firm provides management services on a variety of
big-league cloud operators.
Standing Cloud enables users to “deploy myriad open source software
solutions to IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service), but goes a step farther in
letting you choose from multiple clouds,” according to Forrester analyst James
Staten.
Appirio engages itself with both the technological and consulting
challenges of enterprise adoption of cloud computing. Since 2006, the firm has
helped implement cloud deployments for 200 enterprise clients with some of the
leading vendors, including Google, Salesforce and Amazon. Earlier this month,
it has acquired VMG, a consulting firm specializing in learning programs
and cloud training.
Spanning Cloud Apps, a company
specializing in backup services for Google Apps on its LinkedIn page, was
founded to become the Norton Computing of the cloud computing era. The firm
offers its signature Spanning Backup product for a free trial and acceptable
annual subscription
.
Bluelock is considered as a leading VMware vCloud hosting provider that
offers both technology and services in the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
space. The firm’s services are tied to VMware’s virtualization technology. It
delivers a tailored solution for establishing a virtual data center hosted on a
public or hybrid cloud.
Skytap, self-service cloud automation, announces the release of a new
technology that claims to establish a secure hybrid cloud that connects to an
on-site data center with its cloud in 10 minutes. The firm anticipates winning
with a dead-simple hybrid cloud deployment solution that provides the security
of the traditional data center with the scale of the cloud.
CloudOptix, backed up by MeghaWare product line, is a cloud
virtualization software player that offers businesses and users a way to create
a private cloud from different vendors. With the preconfigured MeghaWare
Cloud Appliance’s portfolio of storage, and applications, it promised low-cost
deployment in less than 15 minutes. To defang the problem of vendor lock-in,
its CloudTop application, allows customers to choose among devices, apps and
cloud providers.
RightScale, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor offers a fully
automated management platform for cloud computing deployments. It aims to lower
the entry barriers to cloud deployments with server templates through its
“cloud-ready” mechanism for connecting servers with the customer’s cloud environment.
Recently, RightScale and Zend Technologies announces their new offering
that pairs RightScale’s cloud management platform with Zend’s PHP architecture
and Zend Server. This technology deploys and manages Php applications in the
cloud.
CloudSwitch, known as an enterprise cloud gateway, provides software in
line with the policies and tools rooted in the data center with a cloud
environment. It offers security for businesses that requires maintenance of
in-house and cloud-based IT assets. Earlier this month, CloudSwitch conjoined
with Riverbed to boost performance and security in the cloud.
Kaavo considers itself to be “the first and only company to deliver a
solution with a top-down application-focused approach to IT resource management
across public, private and hybrid clouds.” The firm believes that its
application-centric approach is necessary for effective cloud management.
Its core product, IMOD, an application management assures speeding up of server
systems online, configuring middleware, and other steps to hasten the
transition to a cloud-based environment.
Prolexic Technologies is a provider of cloud-based security technology
that mitigates DDoS attacks. The firm caters to SMN, enterprise and government
clients. It features proprietary mitigation and control software that helps detect
and fend off DDoS attacks through pairing with a global network of “scrubbing
centers.”
At the end of March, the firm received $13.9 million fund from Kennet
Partners, an organization that is rumored to be helping a major electronics
manufacturer guard against a DDoS attack.
Nimbula, founded by a management team that helped develop Amazon EC2
coins itself as a “cloud operating system company.” Recently, the firm released
its flagship product, Nimbula Director 1.0 that provides management for both
cloud-based resources and on-premises data centers. This Director 1.0 is also
available for free download for smaller deployments up to 40 cores, and an
optional-fee based annual support for larger systems.
Nasuni, through its partnership with cloud-computing providers offers a
“cloud gateway” that searches for the best aspect of the cloud and on-premises
storage. This year, its Nasuni Filer product features a “snapshot retention,”
that allows IT managers to set storage and retention policies on the cloud.
With this feature, managers can determine the point then a snapshot can be
deleted irrevocably
NephoScale is one of the more recent entrants in the IaaS market. The
firm’s public cloud infrastructure platform offers pay-by-the-hour servers,
object-based storage, and dedicated, on-demand servers. Its signature
innovation, the CloudScript, enables users to control all elements of their
cloud deployment using a single, one-to-many API call.
Recently, the firm offers a free, one-year trial of a 256 MB cloud
server and as much as 1 GB of storage through its Cloud Computing and Storage
Starter Package. According to NephoScale President Bruce Templeton, this
offering will allow start-up companies to familiarize themselves with their
services without spending too much.
