Virtualization and cloud computing are creating the foremost significant shift in datacenter design in 25 years, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger will tell Interop audience in keynote address. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger says virtualization and cloud computing have produced a “tectonic shift” in IT operations induce software-defined datacenters replacing hardware-defined datacenters. As a way to be the foremost topic of his keynote address on April 3 on the Interop conference and exhibition in Las Vegas. “We expect we’re entering an unprecedented phase of IT. The transition from client/server computing to mobile/cloud computing affects everything IT does. It is a tectonic shift in IT. Our strategy is to construct the software-defined datacenter, versus the hardware-defined datacenter,” he told InformationWeek in a pre-show interview. Gelsinger, who was CEO for 2 years, said the shift toward hybrid cloud computing is producing “a tipping point” where customers are a lot more receptive to hearing about VMware’s solution to hybrid cloud computing, vCloud Hybrid Service. But more significantly, perhaps, additionally it is... Read More »

SAP’s address Fieldglass extends SuccessFactors’ HR reach to contingent workers and Ariba procurement to labor and services. SAP announced on Wednesday the planned acquisition of Fieldglass, which supplies a cloud-based vendor management system for procuring and managing contingent labor and services. The deal complements SAP’s cloud-based SuccessFactors human resources applications and its Ariba procurement network. The deal positions SAP to aid companies “manage their entire workforce — both temporary and permanent staff — from initial recruiting and on-boarding to ongoing development, performance management, retention, and retirement,” SAP said in an announcement. [Want more on SAP’s cloud plans? Read Can SAP Master Cloud & On-Premises?] Based in Chicago, the 14-year-old Fieldglass has greater than 250 corporate customers starting from AIG and American Airlines to Johnson & Johnson and Verizon. The job descriptions range from lawyers, PR specialists, developers, and engineers to flight attendants, cashiers, clerical workers, and cooks. Managing contracts and statement-of-work services is attending to be a huge business; companies now spend $3.3 trillion annually... Read More »

SOASTA gained experience within the London and Vancouver Olympics; its cloud-based testing will shape the subsequent 10 years of Olympics IT. Sochi Olympics 2014: 10 Technologies In Spotlight (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Testing to bypass failure is a challenge of Olympic proportions. Just ask SOASTA, which has committed for the subsequent 10 years to check the readiness of the International Olympic Committee’s ticketing and seat selection applications, in addition to overall website operations. The Mountain View, Calif., firm announced Tuesday a ten-year contract to function the appliance tester for the International Olympic Committee’s IT operations. It is a subcontractor to general contractor Atos, a 74,000-employee French firm also under a protracted-term contract to produce IT services, as it’s currently doing in Sochi, Russia. “We’re already in conversations with Tokyo,” the positioning of the 2020 Summer Olympics, said Tom Lounibos, CEO of SOASTA. He said SOASTA will join Atos to establish IT operations for the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil and the 2018... Read More »

Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR should consider rewarding its Kickstarter backers with something greater than a T-shirt. Facebook’s decision to obtain Oculus VR on the way to connect social networking with virtual reality hasn’t gone over well with the Kickstarter members who backed the startup. Comments from Kickstarter participants had been predominantly negative, with backers saying they feel sickened, betrayed, saddened, and disappointed. Similar sentiment dominates discussions of the deal on Reddit — a lot in order that Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Luckey bothered to reply. “i’m sorry that you’re disappointed,” Luckey wrote. “To be honest, if I were you, i’d probably have an analogous initial impression! There are lots of of the explanation why this can be a great point, a lot of which aren’t yet public. lots of people obviously feel a similar way you do.” [Whom does Oculus take part the Facebook “family”? Read Facebook Oculus Deal: 5 Older Siblings.] Luckey defended the explanation for selling his company, and only... Read More »

Upstart enterprise opens sixth datacenter, plans for brand new UK facility and more developer tools. Top 10 Cloud Fiascos (Click image for larger view.) Developer-friendly DigitalOcean is expanding into Asia with a brand new cloud datacenter opening in Singapore Tuesday. It should serve developers in Australia, India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, in step with founder Mitch Wainer. DigitalOcean will fan the flames of 150 servers in a brand new Equinix facility in Singapore to get its Asia/Pacific region going. Wainer said those five racks can be only a start if DigitalOcean follows the pattern of rapidly adding more developer accounts, because it has in North America and Europe. It has an option with Equinix for more room within the same site. At the beginning of 2013, DigitalOcean had 2,000 users and was just commencing to gain a flood of Ruby developers that might boost its server count from 100 to 7,000 by July. As of last week, it had 163,000 active accounts and was expanding... Read More »