Web Hosting For Facebook, OpenSocial Developers, from Sun Microsystems (Try Hosted Groupware for iPhone)

Web Hosting For Facebook, OpenSocial Developers, from Sun Microsystems

Santa Clara , California - (The Hosting News) - August 4, 2008 - Technology firm and web hosting provider, Sun Microsystems, Inc., recently collaborated with Joyent, to accelerate the development and deployment of social applications for Facebook and OpenSocial environments.

Providing up to 12 months free web hosting on Joyent’s Cloud, a flexible first-class infrastructure powered by OpenSolaris on Sun’s ultra-scalable servers, as well as training on web-scale application development, the program lets developers deploy their social applications on an entirely open infrastructure at no initial cost.

Akash Garg, CTO of Hi5 noted, ”We appreciate what Sun and Joyent are doing to accelerate development of OpenSocial. Our developers look forward to developing and deploying on Joyent Accelerators that provide a reference architecture that has proven to be successful across other platforms.”

Social applications are the cornerstone of social networking web sites. Recommendation-based growth can mean widespread and very rapid distribution so applications must be architected and built for a large user base. Developers using the new service from Sun and Joyent will now have this flexibility and scalability via access to the Sun-powered, OpenSolaris-based Sun Fire x4150 and Sun Fire x4500 Joyent Cloud. Cloud computing allows developers to start with a small set of resources capable of serving thousands of users and provision additional resources on-demand to scale to millions of users as required.

Jason Hoffman, Founder and CTO of Joyent remarked, ”Bumpersticker started on a Joyent Accelerator as an experimental Facebook application 11 months ago. Bumpersticker has now grown to over one billion page views a month. Sun’s OpenSolaris has helped Joyent meet our clients’ needs to scale quickly. The open-sourcing of Solaris has made a big difference to our business model. It allows us to scale virtually and keep up with the rapid growth in demand for Joyent’s Cloud computing service.”

Mark Otero, Founder and CEO of Klicknation.com offered, ”We have been using Joyent’s Cloud for eight months. Joyent and the OpenSolaris-based infrastructure they provide has helped us reliably scale to over four million users and over 22 million widget views a day at an extremely low cost.”

Adam Souzis, architect of the Glam Application Platform commented, ”Developers of Glam applications need more than a good idea. To succeed, you need to start small on a flexible platform that can rapidly scale from a few hundred users to several million users. That’s why Glam has chosen to partner with Joyent to offer infrastructure to developers building applications on Glam’s OpenSocial-based platform.”

Juan Carlos Soto, VP of Global Market Development and Engineering of Sun Microsystems added, ”Social applications are one of the fastest growing software categories and will continue momentum with the promise of monetization offered by Hi5, Facebook, Myspace, Google’s Orkut, LinkedIn Glam and other social networking sites with memberships that number in the millions. With this new program, Sun can provide social application developers access to Sun’s technology and expertise in building large-scale applications with Joyent helping them to deploy on a highly scalable and reliable platform.”

In conjunction with this offering, Sun and Joyent are organizing a multi-city Social App Tour to offer training on developing web-scale social applications on the Cloud. The tour will travel to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago, Boston, New York and Austin/Dallas between September and December. Training will cover architecting and designing social applications that are capable of scaling to deal with viral growth and will demonstrate how to use tools such as Dtrace to identify infrastructure bottlenecks and optimize code for maximum scalability

Joyent provides Cloud computing services. Joyent’s goal is to help developers go from idea to millions of customers served without the pain of large capital outlays and long-term vendor contracts. Our clients use Joyent Accelerators to power large scale web applications, including apps for Facebook and OpenSocial. Joyent Accelerators are virtualized servers coupled with the highest grade network and routing fabric available. Joyent’s cloud is open, scalable, and fast.

The Sun Startup Essentials program is designed to help eligible U.S. based startup companies get to market faster while conserving cash. The program offers its members a range of discounted Sun products and services, including its award-winning Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun Fire servers with CoolThreads technology, and Sun’s select StorageTek line of products, including modular disk arrays, NAS and tape storage products.

In addition to offering products and services to eligible U.S. based members, Sun also is offering free technical advice via email and access to free software such as Apache, MySQL and Perl (AMP) optimized to run on the Solaris 10 OS. Program members can also select the web hosting infrastructure from Sun partners based on Sun technologies along with services they need, in case they choose not to build and operate the infrastructure themselves. Sun develops technologies designed to power comprehensive markets, in more than 100 countries.

To learn more about Sun’s Startup Essentials program, visit: www.sun.com/startups.

For more information about the social application tour and free hosting offer, please visit: www.joyent.com/a/socialdev.

Hosting Facilitator, Juniper Networks, Devises Centralized Routing Security

Sunnyvale, California - (The Hosting News) - August 4, 2008 - Expansion of network and security management capabilities with Juniper Networks, is taking place with a unified management function, across its routing, switching and security infrastructure.

Jon Oltsik, Senior Analyst, Information Security, Enterprise Strategy Group noted, ”IT organizations supporting high-performance businesses are under continuous pressure to provide lower cost of ownership, improve management efficiency and more effectively leverage their network and security investment. Network administrators need a cost-effective, comprehensive solution that can easily and effectively manage the evolving network and security infrastructure with centralized management rather than using multiple management tools to control each device on the network.”

The new NSM offers centralized management for Juniper Networks J-series services routers, EX-series Ethernet switches, Secure Access SSL VPN and firewall/VPN and Intrusion Detection and Prevention appliances, and today’s newly announced Unified Access Control (UAC) solution. NSM enables high-performance businesses to consolidate and simplify the management of their network infrastructure to increase security, reduce cost and realize operational gains.

Glenn Hudler, an Information Officer for the International Finance Corporation, a Member of the World Bank Group added, ”Since our network is critical to our success we require a fast, reliable and secure high-performance infrastructure to support our growing operations. The Juniper Networks NSM delivers enhanced functions in a single application to manage our Juniper products, allowing us to significantly improve responsiveness to threats while simultaneously reducing operational costs and maintaining investment protection without compromises in performance and functionality.”

Juniper Networks NSM, with comprehensive, secure centralized device and policy management, provides unparalleled capability for device and security policy configuration, comprehensive monitoring, reporting tools, and tools for investigating potential security threats in the network - all from a single user interface. NSM enables large scale deployments and the ability to do global policy enforcement via a hierarchical distribution of the Juniper Networks NSMXpress and the NSM Central Manager. In addition to centralized management for Juniper Networks J-series services routers, EX-series Ethernet switches, Secure Access SSL VPN and firewall/VPN and Intrusion Detection and Prevention appliances, and UAC solution, new features and benefits include:

• Consistent monitoring across Juniper network and security products
• Implementation of policy changes network-wide to mitigate threats
• Policy versioning with rollback capabilities
• Efficient network-wide control with centralized management
• XML schema-based management architecture for extensibility
• Open, standard northbound SOAP/XML API for ease of integration
• Role-based administration

The latest NSM capabilities enable innovative businesses to also centrally manage their comprehensive Juniper Networks Adaptive Threat Management and Access Control Solutions. Juniper Networks Adaptive Threat Management Solution is a dynamic and high-performance security solution that leverages interoperability between security components to provide network-wide visibility and control in order to adapt to changing risks. Juniper Networks Access Control Solution delivers a comprehensive network access control (NAC) security solution that protects vital network resources and applications by provisioning secure local access across the distributed enterprise.

Mike Harding, Vice President of Network Management, Juniper Networks remarked, ”Juniper is committed to delivering fast, reliable and secure high-performance network and security solutions that provide operational efficiency so that customers can concentrate on their business objectives instead of their network. With our latest capabilities in NSM, device technicians, network administrators, and security administrators can now work together to improve management efficiency and security, reduce overhead, and lower operating costs.”

The new Juniper Networks Network and Security Manager (NSM) 2008.1 is available today. For more information about Juniper’s management software for secure, high-performance networking, please visit Juniper Networks Management Software Product and Services.

Juniper Networks, Inc. is the leader in high-performance networking. Juniper offers a high-performance network infrastructure that creates a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications over a single network. This fuels high-performance businesses.

To learn more, please visit: www.juniper.net.

I Am Rich: App Store Application Process Automated by Drones
Apple claims that only “quality” applications are available in the App Store. So how in the world did this App called “I Am Rich” make it into the app store? The Apple Blog points out the obvious situation at hand, in which automated drones are regulating the application process for the app store. That is [...]

Apple claims that only “quality” applications are available in the App Store. So how in the world did this App called “I Am Rich” make it into the app store?

The Apple Blog points out the obvious situation at hand, in which automated drones are regulating the application process for the app store. That is the only way this application being available in the app store makes any sense. (Direct iTunes link)

Below is a screenshot of the ridiculous application. It’s literally a red ruby looking thing that glows, which is supposed to signify your wealth to others who know how expensive the app is. Now that’s what I call functionality.

Kerio Showcases Kerio Exchange Migration Tool
Advanced Offering Provides Businesses with Fast and Easy Migration from Microsoft Exchange to Kerio MailServer on Multiple Platforms

Carmack: “Steve Jobs Doesn’t Care About Games”
Lead programmer of Doom and co-founder of developer id Software, John Carmack, seems to be a rather straight shooter when it comes to his opinion on gaming. During last week’s QuakeCon, Carmack shed his thoughts on Apple’s drive in the industry. He stated that : “The truth is Steve Jobs doesn’t care about games. This [...]

Lead programmer of Doom and co-founder of developer id Software, John Carmack, seems to be a rather straight shooter when it comes to his opinion on gaming.

During last week’s QuakeCon, Carmack shed his thoughts on Apple’s drive in the industry. He stated that :

“The truth is Steve Jobs doesn’t care about games. This is going to be one of those things that I say something in an interview and it gets fed back to him and I’m on his $***head list for a while on that, until he needs me to do something else there. But I think that that’s my general opinion. He’s not a gamer.”

Despite Jobs’ introduction of the App store, that has opened the floodgates for software developers, and already features hundreds of games, Carmack still insists that Apple doesn’t “deeply get” gaming.

He added, in an interview with EuroGamer that:

“It’s difficult to ask somebody to get behind something they don’t really believe in. I mean obviously he believes in the music and the iTunes and that whole side of things, and the media side of things, and he gets it and he pushes it and they do wonderful things with that, but he’s not a gamer. That’s just the bottom line about it.”

While Carmack maintains his pessimistic outlook on Steve Jobs’ support for gaming, it doesn’t mean that he negates their products. “I think the iPhone is a potentially extremely important platform for a lot of reasons,” said Carmack in putting Apple’s product up against handhelds such as the PSP. I think it’s a great platform for content and new talent on there,” he said. id Software is currently developing two games for Apple’s device.

Article

Steve Jobs Admits that Mobile Me is Still “Not up to Apple’s standards”
Surely releasing the iPhone 3G, App Store, Mobile Me and iPhone Software 2.0 on the same day would result in at least a few mistakes. But nobody could have predicted the overall disaster that the Mobile Me launch ended up being. In an internal email to employees, Steve Jobs confessed that Mobile Me was launched [...]

Surely releasing the iPhone 3G, App Store, Mobile Me and iPhone Software 2.0 on the same day would result in at least a few mistakes. But nobody could have predicted the overall disaster that the Mobile Me launch ended up being. In an internal email to employees, Steve Jobs confessed that Mobile Me was launched a little too early and it was “not up to Apple’s standards.”

“The e-mail, seen by Ars Technica, acknowledges MobileMe’s flaws and what could have been done to better handle the launch. In addition to needing more time and testing, Jobs believes that Apple should have rolled MobileMe’s services out slowly instead of launching it “as a monolithic service.” For example, over-the-air iPhone syncing could have gone up initially, then web apps one by one (Mail, Calendar, etc.),” Jacqui Cheng reports for ArsTechnica.

“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” Steve Jobs continues to explain in the email. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.”

We have reported in the past about the beliefs that this past July 9th was simply too ambitious. A company like Apple, who by choice decides to only release a few products a year, should not be releasing 4 major products on the same day. It is simply too ambitious (not in a good way) and they don’t have enough support to handle the possible disasters that can ensue.

Because the Mobile Me launch was such a failure, Apple has reorganized the entire Mobile Me team, which will now report to Eddy Cue. Cue will report straight to Steve Jobs, as well as head all Internet-related services at Apple (iTunes, App Store, Mobile Me).

“The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services,” Jobs continues to explain. “And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.”

Additional thoughts: Hey Apple, why don’t you ring up Google? They’ve been dealing with online services for some time now. You guys are such healthy and bountiful partners.

Don’t you think it’s time to stop being so secretive and ask a company (Google) who has seemingly been successful in this space for a little help?

[Updates] More Leaked Aluminum Macbook Case Photos
More leaked Macbook case photos have been released, increasing speculation that Apple’s upcoming notebook overhaul will include aluminum Macbooks that will more resemble the slender, aluminum design of the Macbook Air. Previous photos depicting the alleged Aluminum Macbook were released and later confirmed. Additionally, MacBlogz has previously learned that the upcoming Macbook Pro overhaul will include [...]

More leaked Macbook case photos have been released, increasing speculation that Apple’s upcoming notebook overhaul will include aluminum Macbooks that will more resemble the slender, aluminum design of the Macbook Air.

Previous photos depicting the alleged Aluminum Macbook were released and later confirmed. Additionally, MacBlogz has previously learned that the upcoming Macbook Pro overhaul will include a Macbook Air like keyboard with backlight.

The notebook overhaul is expected to be released in late September.

Updates: An English translation has been provided:

From the picture below we can see that the MacBook has also entered the world of aluminum cases.

Along with its two big brothers it has changed to an aluminum case. Everyone can also pay attention to the corners. Right now Apple loves to do stuff like this. Everyone wants to know if the Apple logo on the cover lights up. The picture below should make this clear, without needing me to say much.

The poster also promises two more photos, but for a later post.

via MacRumors via Engadget
source is here

Kerio Moves Global Headquarters
Messaging and Security Leader Joins Other Technology Companies in the Heart of Silicon Valley

Dedicated Server Provider, Layered Technologies, Premieres Hyper-V Solutions

Plano, Texas - (The Hosting News) - August 4, 2008 - Provider of ”on demand” IT infrastructure, Layered Technologies, has made available Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V-based virtual private machines, as one of the first offerings of its kind.

Hypervisor-based virtual private machines are designed to allow customers to take advantage of the control, efficiency and overall cost-effectiveness of server consolidation and virtualization. The release follows on the heels of Layered Tech’s recent launch of dedicated servers running Microsoft Windows 2008 and Hyper-V. Layered Tech made the announcement at HostingCon 2008, the premier conference and tradeshow for the hosted services industry.

Jack Finlayson, Chief Executive Officer, Layered Tech noted, ”The Microsoft Hyper-V platform allows Layered Tech to deliver a category-leading product that outperforms traditional VPS offerings generally available in the marketplace. These are full virtual machines with complete control over everything, right down to the operating system. Customers now have a greater range of control than ever before, combined with a much higher degree of security and reliability.”

As a key feature of Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V allows virtualization of multiple operating systems, including Windows and Linux, all on the same server. The technology provides a scalable, reliable and highly available virtualization platform along with a single set of integrated management tools to manage both physical and virtual resources. Windows Hyper-V also offers large memory support and provides backup/restore, snapshotting and easy transition of virtual servers from one physical server to another.

The Hyper-V-based virtual private machines are delegated virtual instances from top-of-the-line servers, which are either IntelVT (IVT) or AMD-V-enabled processors for true virtualization. Windows Hyper-V allows both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux or Windows virtual machines to be created independent of the underlying operating system. Standalone applications such as Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint, for example, will now be able to run on one physical server, allowing users to consolidate multiple systems into a single environment without compromising control, security features or performance.

John Zanni, General Manager of Worldwide Hosting, Microsoft Corp. remarked, ”We are excited that Layered Tech is among the first hosting providers to bring dedicated Hyper-V-based virtual private servers to market. Their offering, combined with the tremendous advantages of a hypervisor-based virtualization tool, will help extend the savings realized through server consolidation and deliver on the vision of true virtualization. In addition, Hyper-V will enable Layered Tech to continue to run a heterogeneous environment by running both Windows and Linux on the same server using a single management interface.”

Pricing for Hyper-V-based virtual private machines starts at $89.00 per month, and additional virtual machines are available on a pay-as-you-grow basis to support customers’ specific needs.

Based in Frisco Texas, Layered Technologies, Inc. is one of the five largest global providers of on-demand hosting and utility computing solutions, providing dedicated, partially managed server hosting solutions primarily for the small and medium-sized enterprise SME market. They provide customers with the highest quality technology, infrastructure and support services that enable them to operate servers at secure Tier III/IV data centers, while saving them the capital and operating costs typically associated with purchasing and maintaining their own servers at colocation facilities. Layered Technologies servers and associated network facilities are used by customers to host a variety of Internet-enabled applications, including content and e-commerce Web sites, software as a service (”SaaS”) offerings, online multiplayer games, shared Web site hosting services, and streaming multimedia content distribution and delivery, among other applications.

For more information about Layered Technologies, please visit: www.layeredtech.com.

[Feature] Apple’s Communication Lacking; Should Call Google for Some Mobile Me Help
We have been given public apologies from Apple, 3 blog posts from David G., and seen a leaked internal e-mail where Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls Mobile Me a disaster. When are we going to see the leaked email where Apple asks Google for some Mobile Me help? Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) controls nearly 80% of the [...]

We have been given public apologies from Apple, 3 blog posts from David G., and seen a leaked internal e-mail where Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls Mobile Me a disaster. When are we going to see the leaked email where Apple asks Google for some Mobile Me help?

Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) controls nearly 80% of the internet. Yup, the entire internet. There is no way to sugar coat the vast influence the company has over web based technology and how it is used. Yet, alongside using Google’s technologies, Apple naturally attempts to compete with Google at becoming your “digital hub” both on and off the web. At this point, it’s probably best to align priorities with Google so that Mobile Me can become at least a sliver as stable as any of Google’s products.

Google’s fundamental technology practices have evolved into a carefully organized and well oiled machine. They know what to release, when to release it, how to maintain it, how to design it and how it should work, both on and off the web. Unlike Mobile Me users, Gmail users have never experienced lost email due to Google’s internal issues.

Apple uses Google’s technologies in places like the Maps Application on the iPhone, or anywhere else they want to integrate mapping, such as Mobile Me. You can give your contacts a location, tag them in Google Maps, and everything (is supposed) to work harmoniously through the main application/service that is being used. On the current iPhone, location awareness is hands-down the most important feature (aside from the phone itself). The inclusion of GPS in the current iPhone 3G only furthered what could be done with the device. By “location awareness” I am referring to the combination of a GPS, Edge or Wi-fi signal being paired with a mapping service such as Google’s, and a Graphical User Interface for user input. This package of usability is known as “location awareness.” Without it, the iPhone would become rather dormant, and seem stuck, rather than being flexible and able to adjust based on your location. You could argue that the actual hardware (GPS chip) or the front-end (Interface Experience) is the most important part. But Google’s back-end Mapping technologies are the driving force behind location based applications on the iPhone. Without this extremely extensive web technology, location based applications simply could not be developed.

In times of crisis, like what we have been experiencing with Mobile Me, Apple should turn to Google and ask for some help. It may have even been wise to include Google in Mobile Me’s development from day one. After all, Google has successfully rolled out numerous web based applications that work like they should. Yes, I know, Gmail has been in beta for over 4 years (Gmail), but it still dominates the email service market share. What would have been wrong with releasing Mobile Me as a beta? What would have been wrong with asking Google for some advice? After all, Google CEO Eric Schmidt does sit on Apple’s board.

It may be entirely possible that Apple and Google don’t want to share code for their services. Google may look at Mobile Me as direct competition, in which case Eric Schmidt would need to leave board meetings where Mobile Me is discussed. Just like he’s done for the iPhone because of Google’s competing mobile development platform Android. Chances are that Apple didn’t want to include Google where they didn’t need them, keeping them on a “need-to-know” basis, just like most employees at Apple are treated. How much longer does Mobile Me need to flounder before Apple gets serious about stability? I don’t mean stable for a few days, or a few applications being stable. I mean, the service as a whole being stable and usable.

The bottom line, is that just like Apple, Google is good at what they do. Just like Steve Jobs was quoted as saying [directed towards Google] that entering is not easy, and not everyone should do it. Google could say the same thing about Apple and the web services field. By Steve Jobs’ own doing, Apple has become a loved hardware and software company. But the software is for the Mac, not the web. Apple is entering a new field of intense competition with Mobile Me. And they are choosing to do it with closed source code, which means that barely anyone outside of the company’s immediate engineers will ever be able to help with the service.

For Apple’s Mobile Me to truly thrive, and utilize what the web has to offer, Google has to be more involved. Google has done this before, and they’ve done it well. Apple and Steve Jobs primarily have had nearly 20 years to perfect their flawlessly written Operating System (OS X). They don’t have another 20 years to get Mobile Me right, so maybe that “need-to-know” basis they keep Google on can change into a “we-need-you-to-know” basis.