In the run-up to the next Cloud Expo, 7th Cloud Expo (November 1–4, 2010) being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley, it's time to give my earlier list a complete overhaul. Here, accordingly, is an expanded list of the most active players in the Cloud Ecosystem. I have increased it from the 'mere' 150 I identified back in January of this year, to 250, testimony – as if any were needed! – to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites of the companies themselves. Omissions to this Top 250 list should be sent to me via Twitter (twitter.com/jg21) and I will endeavor to include them in any future revision of this newly expanded rou... (more)

The Next Chapter in the Virtualization Story Begins

Cloud Expo Europe €550 Savings here! Cloud Expo West $800 Savings here! Cloud Computing Journal recently caught up with Pete Malcolm, CEO of cloud management innovators Abiquo - a major new player in the fast-emerging Cloud ecosystem and Platinum Plus Sponsor of 6th Cloud Expo being held in Prague, the Czech Republic, 21-22 June 2010. Malcolm is keynoting at the event. His theme will be "An Open Cloud Ecosystem - the Gathering Storm." Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities ! Abiquo was also Platinum Plus Sponsor of the 5th International Cloud Expo held April 19-21, 2... (more)

Top Ten Performance Problems

For your reference, we've compiled a list of the Top 10 Performance Problems as we have seen them over the years when working with our clients. I hope this list is enlightening – and I’ve included follow-up links to the blogs to help better understand how to solve these problems: #1: Too Many Database Calls The problem we see the most are too many database query per request/transaction. There are 3 specific phenomena to witness: More data is requested is than actually required in the context of the current transaction, e.g.: requesting all account information instead of those tha... (more)

Who’s Gonna Buy Novell?

Novell set this week as the deadline for acquisition offers, according to the Wall Street Journal followed by the New York Times. Elliott Associates LLP spokesman Scott Tagliarino claims Elliott, whose $5.75-a-share offer put Novell in play a couple of months ago, knows nothing about Novell's schedule. "It's running its own show," he said. Elliott's offer is still on the table. Novell refused the hedge fund's unsolicited bid as too low but since the offer inflated Novell's sunken stock price the company knew it was trapped and went looking for a sweeter deal. The Journal report... (more)

Ubuntu Cloud platform

This guest post was written by James Mowery, a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. For the Ubuntu faithful, the recent announcement that Canonical could be expanding their business relationship with IBM in regards to the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud platform is welcome news. Though details are vague at this point, the early buzz is that a strengthened joint venture between the two companies might possibly be forthcoming at this week’s Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon. As of late April of this year, UEC counts 12,000 active deployments and growing.... (more)