Last chance to register for our webinar event tomorrow! 

Join us for this live event as we discuss the move towards “Big Data” and how it will impact organizations and government agencies as they search for a more robust and reliable approach to capturing, storing, manipulating and analyzing digital information.

In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by IDC, the digital information will grow by 1.2 zettabytes and be 44 times larger than in was in 2009. Even more interesting, the report notes that by 2020, much of this data will be held in cloud environments or will be “touched by cloud.”

This session will provide you with an understanding of how organizations and agencies can apply cloud architectures to help deal with the data deluge, allowing them to more quickly spot business trends and engage, retain and serve customers better than ever before.

Join us on Thursday, August 26, 2010 to:
• Discover how “Big Data” will enable new types of application architectures, such as mapreduce for some common batch operations.
• Understand how this impacts traditional servers, relational databases and SAN architectures
• Learn how to take advantage of Big Data and control costs by incorporating cloud platform and infrastructure technologies.

Register Now!

It’s hard to believe summer is almost over!  We are in the final stretch and I must admit, personally I am excited for school to start so I can get back some of my sanity. (Note “some” – not “all”)

With the close of summer comes the close of our very successful webinar series – The Execs Guide to Cloud Computing.  Each webinar in the series produced record attendance.  If you missed any of the past sessions be sure to check out the recordings below:

1.)  Part 1:  Strategic Implications of Cloud Computing

2.)  Part 2:  The Cloud Adoption Life Cycle

3.)  Part 3:  Cloud Architecture, Modeling and Design

4.)  Part 4:  The Move Towards Big Data <REGISTER NOW!!>

The last webinar is definitely one you don’t want to miss and just happens to be in Appistry’s sweet spot!  As I’m sure you know, it’s a total coincidence that it happened this way;) 

In this next and final series we will discuss the move towards “Big Data” and how it will impact organizations and government agencies as they search for a more robust and reliable approach to capturing, storing, manipulating and analyzing digital information.

In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by IDC, the digital information will grow by 1.2 zettabytes and be 44 times larger than in was in 2009. Even more interesting, the report notes that by 2020, much of this data will be held in cloud environments or will be “touched by cloud.”

This session will provide you with an understanding of how organizations and agencies can apply cloud architectures to help deal with the data deluge, allowing them to more quickly spot business trends and engage, retain and serve customers better than ever before.

Join us on Thursday, August 26, 2010 to:
• Discover how “Big Data” will enable new types of application architectures, such as mapreduce for some common batch operations.
• Understand how this impacts traditional servers, relational databases and SAN architectures
• Learn how to take advantage of Big Data and control costs by incorporating cloud platform and infrastructure technologies.

Register Now!

We’ve been generating some great crowds for our summer webinar series.  As a quick recap we started this campaign in May 2010 shortly after the release of the much anticipated book – The Execs Guide to Cloud Computing.

We thought it would be beneficial to cover some of the chapters of the book through a series of webinars because there is surprisingly little information available about cloud computing from the enterprise IT executive. 

The third installment of the series will be held on July 22, 2010 and will discuss Cloud Modeling, Architecture and Design

Date: Thursday, July 22, 2010
Time: 11:00 PST/1:00 CST/2:00 EST

This next session we will discuss modeling and architecture techniques to help facilitate your cloud planning, implementation and migration.

This session will provide you with a Cloud Reference Model, a Cloud Reference Architecture, and a repeatable Cloud Modeling Approach to help you identify patterns and support your business objectives.

Join us on Thursday, July 22, 2010 to:
• Learn about the cloud reference model and architecture, and how it will facilitate the implementation of your cloud architecture.
• Discover how to identify and document cloud patterns that meet your organization’s business requirements.
• Learn how to document cloud patterns using a standard set of symbols mapped to the cloud reference model.
Join us for this live event as we share our successes leveraging these cloud modeling and architecture approaches and learn how to apply them to your enterprise.

Seminar Series Schedule:
1. 5/6/10: Strategic Implications of cloud computing and why executives should care!
2. 6/17/10: The Cloud Adoption Lifecycle
3. 7/22/10: Cloud Architecture, Modeling and Design
4. 8/12/10: The Move Towards Big Data

Hopefully you saw our big announcement this morning!  We are excited to announce strategic alliances with several of the leading Hadoop ecosystem vendors including Concurrent, Datameer and Kitenga.

So what does this mean and why is it important you ask?
We are really excited to announce these partnerships because each of these vendors add unique value by simplifying the development of analytical applications on Hadoop and hiding the complexity of the underlying MapReduce framework.

If your following corporate trends, you’ll see that  “Big Data” is playing a more strategic role in helping enterprises understand and serve their customers. As a result, a broader set of users now require a more reliable and robust file storage system that is both easy-to-use and works with their existing Hadoop applications.  In the simplest terms, our partnerships with leading Hadoop vendors make this vision of a more robust storage system possible.

Under the terms of the partnership, each of these vendors’ products has been validated against Appistry CloudIQ Storage Hadoop Edition, which offers plug-and-play compatibility with the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), and each will work with Appistry to support joint customers using CloudIQ Storage in place of HDFS.

Without any changes to their applications, users of the Concurrent, Datameer and Kitenga products can choose Appistry CloudIQ Storage as a more robust file system for their enterprise-grade Hadoop deployments. CloudIQ Storage is fully decentralized and offers higher availability and greater reliability than HDFS, whose “NameNode” is a single point of failure and network bottleneck.

Be sure to check out the full announcement

Here is a quick overview of the partners and their offerings:
• Concurrent develops software to help enterprises realize the full benefits of parallel computing clusters. Concurrent has released the Cascading open-source project, a layer over MapReduce that allows developers to rapidly create complex data processing and computing applications through a straightforward Java API. Cascading provides simpler abstractions to define applications and glue them together, as well as interfaces to work with external systems.
• Datameer offers the a big data analytics solution built on Hadoop that helps business users access, analyze and use massive amounts of data. Founded by Hadoop veterans in 2009, the company’s breakthrough product, Datameer Analytics Solution (DAS), provides unparalleled access to data with minimal IT resources. DAS scales to 4,000 servers and petabytes of data and is available for all major Hadoop distributions including Apache, Cloudera, Yahoo!, IBM, and Amazon.
• Kitenga provides an innovative multi-media content mining solution for non-programming professionals, designed to reduce or eliminate the complexity, risk and cost typically associated with implementing massively scaled-out multimedia content mining solutions. Kitenga’s ZettaVox application combines ready-to-run content processing elements with a full-fledged content mining/analytics solution that distributes processing over cloud and cluster-based computing assets by leveraging the open-source Hadoop framework. The entire process can be monitored, batched, and the results analyzed using sophisticated visualization and analytics tools.

We encourage you to check out our additional resources to learn more about Appistry CloudIQ Hadoop Edition:

Appistry CloudIQ Storage, Hadoop Edition is available for free download through Appistry’s Peer2Peer community:
http://www.appistry.com/community/go/cloudiq-community-edition-download.
Appistry Web Site: www.appistry.com
CloudIQ Storage Product Page: http://www.appistry.com/products/cloud-iq-storage
CloudIQ Storage Hadoop Edition Page: http://www.appistry.com/products/cloud-iq-storage/hadoop-edition

Hopefully you’ve heard about our summer webinar series – The Execs Guide to Cloud Computing.  Just in case you missed Part 1,  you can catch the replay Part 1 – Strategic Implication of Cloud Computing at: http://www.appistry.com/media/execs_guide_strategic_implications/

As a quick reminder we assembled this webinar series because there is surprisingly little information available about cloud computing from the enterprise IT executive. And we thought this series would be a great way to cover topics taken from the just released book:  The Execs Guide to Cloud Computing

We are now promoting the second installment of our webinar series titled Exec’s Guide Part 2: The Cloud Adoption Lifecycle

Join us on Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 11:00 PST/1:00 CST/2:00 EST as we discuss what IT and Business leaders need to know about cloud computing to be successful.

Just to give you a little background, this next webinar about the Cloud Adoption Lifecycle webinar will discuss effective and efficient methodologies for adopting cloud computing.

Key takeaways from the webinar include:

• Uncover the various stages of the cloud adoption lifecycle from initial proof-of-concepts, requirements gathering and implementation of an enterprise-scale cloud computing strategy.
• Understand the major milestones and best practices in the cloud adoption lifecycle
• Learn cloud adoption best practices and common pitfalls to avoid as you begin your journey with cloud computing.
Here is a quick look at what we have in store for the summer!

Seminar Series Schedule:
1. 5/6/10: Strategic Implications of cloud computing and why executives should care!
2. 6/17/10: The Cloud Adoption Lifecycle
3. 7/15/10: Cloud Architecture, Modeling and Design
4. 8/12/10: The Move Towards Big Data

Appistry is thrilled to announcement the  general availability of Appistry CloudIQ Storage and Appistry CloudIQ Storage Hadoop Edition. With this announcement we also announced the release of version 4.3 of our flagship Appistry CloudIQ Platform.

If you don’t recall from the first Beta announcement,  CloudIQ Storage is software that creates a scalable, reliable and highly cost-effective file storage system with no single points of failure, using only commodity servers and networking. Hadoop Edition adds plug-and-play compatibility with the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).

Appistry CloudIQ Platform 4.3, in addition to providing support for CloudIQ Storage, adds new APIs for log file, user and group management and includes a number of performance enhancements and bug fixes.

The new products are available for free and immediate download from Appistry’s Peer2Peer community portal at http://www.appistry.com/community.

Be sure to check out the full announcement!

Appistry will host a webinar next Thursday,  May 20, 2010 at 1:00 CST/2:00 EST titled “PaaS, Chapter 2 – The Future of Application Delivery.”

This free webinar will feature industry veteran and Forrester vice president, John Rymer, as he explores platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and its role as the future of application development, deployment and delivery.
We are excited to report there are over 250 registrants already.  I think this is reflective of the continued interest in the PaaS market.  In fact, according to many industry experts and analysts, PaaS continues to hold the attention of enterprise IT executives for its ability to accelerate time-to-market. Yet adoption of the first crop of public cloud PaaS offerings has been slow due to the lack of control, visibility and portability.

And that’s exactly what this webinar will explore - A new breed of solutions dubbed “PaaS, Chapter 2” which offer the best of the 1st generation of PaaS without the limitations that have hampered enterprise adoption.
So what are the takeaways you ask??

Attendees will learn about the next-generation of platform-as-a-service offerings, and how they can help enterprises:
1. Accelerate application development and reduce time to market, while preserving existing investments in tools and skill sets
2. Deliver more agile, scalable applications able to react to fluctuating market conditions
3. Decrease capital and operational costs for new and existing applications without vendor lock-in
4. Select the best deployment option for your application, including both public and private clouds

To register for the webinar, please visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/478990352

Here is a great article about Appistry, GoGrid and one of our joint customers – Presidio Health.

Note the offer at the end of the article.  For the next 90 days, GoGrid is offering a US$100 credit to Outsourcing Journal readers who reference this promotional code: GGAPPO

http://www.outsourcing-journal.com/may2010-healthcare.html

Outsourcing Journal – Outsourcing saves buyers money through lower cost. Outsourcing really saves money if the service is free.

To allow organizations to take advantage of low-cost IT infrastructure outsourcing, Appistry provides a software solution that helps companies move their applications to the cloud. The company provides its software at no cost to small and medium-sized users. “We wanted to create an easy way to use our product without the hassle of establishing a commercial relationship with us,” explains Sam Charrington, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Appistry.

Appistry is a software company specializing in private cloud computing. It has partnered with GoGrid, which provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS), to present a complete offering. “We make our software available on GoGrid’s infrastructure,” explains Charrington. Since Appistry’s software sits preconfigured on top of GoGrid’s infrastructure, outsourcing buyers can deploy their applications on demand in the cloud “with just a few clicks of a mouse,” says Jack Duffy, GoGrid’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development.

Appistry CloudIQ Platform consists of three offerings:
1. CloudIQ Manager helps enterprises manage their applications within a cloud environment.
2. CloudIQ Engine helps companies cloud-enable their applications, providing scalability and reliability.
3. CloudIQ Storage allows organizations to harness inexpensive commodity storage.

“Companies use our products because they don-t have to run their applications on big iron hardware,” explains Charrington.

Traditionally, Appistry focused on private clouds where companies operate their own data centers. Charrington says Appistry’s core customer base is large-scale users; some customers include FedEx and U.S. government agencies. “They use our products on hundreds of servers,” he reports.

Two years ago the software company launched its Open Distribution program and Appistry CloudIQ Platform “Community Edition.” Charrington says Appistry offers this software free “to lower the barriers of entry and help smaller companies get started easily.”

Why give away your products in this recession-wracked economy? “We wanted to give back,” answers Charrington simply.

How Presidio Health uses the free service
Presidio Health is a small, start-up, software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider in the healthcare industry. Its market is emergency room physicians. Typically they are contractors, not employees of the hospital where they work. Presidio Health’s application helps them track the cash payments and insurance reimbursements from the patients they see in the ER.

“Once the patient leaves the ER, a doctor has a 20 percent chance of collecting the money owed,” points out Tom Gregory, CTO for Presidio Health. One of the company’s applications helps the physicians collect their fees.

Under the current insurance system, if one item in the reimbursement document is incorrect, the insurance company will refuse payment. One of Presidio Health’s applications, which sits between the facility and the third-party billing system, collects the demographic and clinical data needed to correctly complete the requisite forms. “The application also shows the doctors where they are leaving money on the table,” adds Gregory. In addition, it analyzes treatment trends to help the physicians make their diagnoses.

Success and an expanding business resulted in growing pains in 2008. These growing pains translated into issues of infrastructure capacity. First came the decision to outsource. “We wanted to focus on the software we were developing for hospitals,” Gregory explains. “We didn’t want to support a full IT staff around the clock to manage the hardware. By using an external provider, we didn-t need to worry about downtime or redundancy. Outsourcing fit our business needs.”

Outsourcing also offered a way to reduce capital expenditures. “We wanted to get more computing power at a lesser price than if we had invested in the necessary hardware and software ourselves. And we wanted the ability to expand the computing power at will,” explains Gregory.

Presidio Health began exploring cloud computing “because you can get more horsepower in the cloud than building your own rack,” Gregory continues. In addition, cloud computing would allow the company “to grow quicker.” The five-person company currently processes 150,000 patient records a year. By the end of 2010 Presidio Health wants to process 16 times that, says Gregory. (That growth is possible because the provider is introducing two new products.) GoGrid’s Duffy says in the end Presidio Health chose an external provider “to control costs, grow capacity as needed, and get to market faster while ensuring HIPAA and PCI (credit card) compliance.”

Selecting a hybrid approach for security
“We have to be HIPAA compliant,” says Gregory. The service provider hosts its own database in its own cabinet to meet HIPAA security requirements; the company sends no data to the cloud. Instead, it uses the cloud solely to host its applications.
Duffy labels this “a hybrid hosted model.” Presidio Health firewalled all its sensitive data while sending only the front end to the public cloud. “If your underlying database requires a high level of security or compliance, it’s best to use a hybrid model,” he notes.

Moving to the Appistry/GoGrid solution increased Presidio Health’s computer power by 70 percent without increasing the budget, reports Gregory. “This solution lets us grow while reducing our reliance on IT,” Gregory concludes. “We now know growth will be less painful as we continue to improve our offering.”

Lessons from the Outsourcing Journal:
• One way small-to-medium sized businesses can weather growth spurts easier is to move their applications to the public cloud.
• Enterprises that have to worry about security can adopt a hybrid hosted solution, which keeps the sensitive data firewalled in their facilities while sending the applications to the cloud.
• Suppliers forming interlocking relationships help buyers by preparing easy-to-configure options.

Click here to read the full case study

For the next 90 days, GoGrid is offering a US$100 credit to Outsourcing Journal readers who reference this promotional code: GGAPPO.

It’s official!  Earlier this week Appistry and AgilePath announced the release of the much-anticipated cloud computing book:  The Executives Guide to Cloud Computing.  After only a few days on the market the publishers are already talking about the next release!  So a big kudos out to Bob Lozano and Eric Marks for all their hard work putting this book together!

You can purchase it on Amazon now!

To give you a little background, we started this initiative because there is surprisingly little information available about cloud computing from the enterprise IT executive perspective.  With the enterprise emerging as the next battleground for the cloud, we hope for this book to service as the go-to resource covering the steps for tackling the issues and concerns specific to the enterprise

“Executive’s Guide to Cloud Computing” provides the critical information that business and technology executives need to understand cloud computing, and then to plan, invest, and deploy cloud computing solutions to achieve targeted business results.

AgilePath and Appistry have developed a proven partnership in providing cloud computing solutions and services leveraging AgilePath’s Cloud Computing Playbook™, Cloud Computing Reference Model, and CloudSprint™ Methodology, as well as Appistry’s best-in-class solution, Appistry CloudIQ Platform.

To support the release of “Executive’s Guide to Cloud Computing,” AgilePath and Appistry announced a series of joint Webinars to focus on key themes from the book, such as the compelling value proposition of cloud computing, how to get started, and how to achieve agility, scalability and efficiency with both private and public clouds. These will be scheduled during May – August 2010, and focus on the following topics:

The first webinar was held today and had over 250 registrants!  Strategic Implementation of Cloud: May 4

We hope the audience continues to grow as we move through the series!  Stay tuned for more information on the next webinars.

• The Cloud Adoption Lifecycle: June 17
• Cloud Architecture, Modeling and Design: July 15
• The Move Towards Big Data: Aug 12

This is one webinar series you don’t want to miss. And with over 200 registrants – apparently many others feel the same way!  Hurry cause there is only a week left to register!

Appistry and Agile Path have joined forces to provide a roadmap for enterprise execs to learn about the technology behind cloud computing and how to apply it to the enterprise

Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Time: 11:00 PST / 2:00 EST

We have assembled this webinar series because there is surprisingly little information available about cloud computing from the enterprise IT executive perspective. With the enterprise emerging as the next battleground for the cloud, two industry veterans, Bob Lozano and Eric Marks, have come together to discuss steps for tackling the issues and concerns specific to the enterprise.

Join us for the Executives Guide to Cloud Computing Webcast Series. Topics we will be exploring have been taken directly from the just-released book: The Executives Guide to Cloud Computing

Seminar Series Schedule:

Tuesday, May 4: Strategic Implications of cloud computing and why executives should care!
Thursday, June 17: The Cloud Adoption Lifecycle
Thursday July 15: Cloud Architecture, Modeling and Design
Thursday, Aug 12: The Move Towards Big Data
Don’t miss Bob Lozano, Appistry founder and advisor, and Eric Marks, CEO of AgilePath, in this live webinar on Tuesday, May 4 at 11:00 PST/1:00 CST/2:00 EST.

Learn from recognized industry experts as they tackle Part 1 of the webinar series – Strategic Implications of Cloud Computing

1. Learn why cloud computing must be a top priority on your company’s IT roadmap
2. Discover how the drive for scale, lower costs and great agility is making cloud computing a fiscal and technolical must.
3. Learn practical steps for planning, executing and measuring incorporation of cloud computing into your organization.

All webinar attendees will be entered to win a copy of the book: The Execs Guide to Cloud Computing!

Register Today!