Hello Blogosphere!  It's me, Alicia Gaba, Senior Marketing Specialist at BlueLock, an experienced cloud computing provider specializing in cloud hosting.

A little about me: I've been at BlueLock since November of 2008, right when the cloud computing marketing began to take flight.  It's been a wild ride, especially in the marketing realm.  Before joining BlueLock, I was at another Collina Ventures company called Cantaloupe TV. Cantaloupe TV is an online video marketing company that also provides a software-as-a-service solution to help organization better manage and promote their online videos.  That solution is called Backlight.  While at Cantaloupe, I was involved with marketing (of course) and also handled 30-40 clients as their project manager.  BlueLock happened to be one of those said clients.

After graduation, I became part of the Orr Fellowship.  The Orr Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate students searching for their first salaried, full-time position following graduation. Each year, a new group of talented graduates is selected from thousands of applicants and placed with a host company. Host companies are some of Indiana's fastest growing entrepreneurial companies. Fellows serve two-year commitment, where host companies engage them in innovative projects while allowing them the opportunity to work closely with company executives.  My tenure with the Fellowship will end in June of 2010 where I will continue my position at BlueLock.

Education: I majored in Communication and Culture at Indiana University and was also part of a selective program called the Liberal Arts and Management Program (LAMP) which is a collaborative offering with the Liberal Arts school and the Kelley School of Business at IU.  Myself and about 100 other IU students in my class took part in this awesome program and obtained a certificate in Business Management.  I was also involved with the Public Relations Student Society of America, serving various roles throughout my years at IU and ending as President of the organization.

Personal: My husband Chris Gaba and I have an ADORABLE golden retriever named Wrigley (yes, we're big Cubs fans) and we love our little home in Fishers.

Bluelock is excited to announce that it was recently named to NetworkWorld's list of "10 most powerful IaaS companies." Writer Christine Burns assembled the list with help from analysts at Cloud Technology Partners, Current Analysis, Enterprise Strategy Group, Gartner, IDC and Neovise. Those analysts named companies they believed have the most influence in the public cloud infrastructure as a service category.

Bluelock continues to prove itself in its ability to draw in enterprise customers to the benefits of using public cloud resources. While serving a wide variety of use cases, Bluelock Virtual Datacenters have enabled many mid-size and large organizations to test new waters with cloud computing. In another article by Christine Burns at NetworkWorld, "IaaS making slow headway," she references a number of enterprise deployment trends mentioning public cloud IaaS use cases that Bluelock continues to see time and again.

Bluelock's very popular Public Cloud Diaries built in conjunction with VMware detail a number of interesting use cases, many resembling the NetworkWorld list. Our list of case studies also continues to grow with our most recent piece featuring PatronPath and Bluelock's role in enabling them to meet strict PCI-DSS compliance requirements for it's online ordering solutions for restaurants.

We continue to see large enterprises going to the cloud to enable greater agility and flexibility, but also for the cloud's ability to provide a level of visibility and control these organizations had never experienced before. Bluelock Portfolio has proven to hit the mark for customers in their quest for that visibility, and it has even begun to change organizational behavior in very large companies.

What would your organization do with the ability to see what your IT resources really cost -- broken down by region, site location, line of business, application, resource component or even by Virtual Datacenter?

To learn more about Bluelock's public cloud infrastructure as a service solutions visit www.bluelock.com.

NetworkWorld articles referenced in this blog post:

10 most powerful IaaS companies

IaaS making slow headway

 

It’s been a busy few weeks for the team at Bluelock and a lot of exciting stuff has been happening, one of which was CRN naming Bluelock to its 2012 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors list. The comprehensive list highlights the most innovative cloud computing companies across the five major categories: cloud platforms, cloud infrastructure, cloud storage, cloud security and cloud software. This is the second time in as many years Bluelock has been named to the cloud infrastructure list. Be sure to check out the list in the March 26 issue of CRN Magazine as well. Here’s what they had to say about Bluelock:
 
“Bluelock embraces the public cloud for its enterprise cloud hosting offerings using its Bluelock Virtual Datacenters to help companies get up and running in its SAS-70 Type II datacenters. Bluelock also boasts the distinction of being among the first certified VMware vCloud Datacenter service providers.”
 
Also this week, Bluelock announced the availability of VMware vCloud® Director™ 1.5 within its VMware vCloud Datacenter Service which has been well received in the media. The announcement was covered on Data Storage Connection, Talkin' Cloud, ServerWatch, HostSearch, TopHosts.com and MyHostNews.com  to name a few.

A short visit back in time to any organization’s datacenter would render images of tape carts, disk drives, paper logs and even punched cards.  Later, the datacenter used menu driven applications to take batch processing out of the computer room and onto the user’s terminal screen.

In just a few short years, the menu-driven application was gone and Graphical User Interfaces gave the user total independence from picking up the telephone and asking IT to “run a report.”  Finally, with the advent of office suites that included integrated spreadsheets, word processors and presentation packages, the IT department took the form of supporting whoever had a computer -- wherever computing took place.

Just when it was safe to relax in the recliner with the laptop running hot, a cold glass of lemonade nearby and a handful of almonds to munch on, someone somewhere in the “techy” world said the words, “Cloud Computing.” 

Take heart, all ye random access warriors.  Keep that glass close by and those almonds in the bowl, change has come again, but in a good way.

In an IT world that has rapidly evolved from challenging the company cash flow with large iron horses laying down huge “footprints” on elevated floors and climate-controlled rooms, to wireless routers and employees armed with note and netbooks, the “cloud” has arrived.

Bluelock, a provider of Virtual Datacenters hosted in the public cloud, is leading the way in cloud technology.  Providing hosted IT solutions, Bluelock gives businesses a “just-in-time” and “just-enough” approach to computing needs. 

While reducing the investments organizations make in their technology budgets, Bluelock is providing on-demand Virtual Datacenters (VDCs) that take the place of the traditional corporate datacenter. Such structural and strategic issues as acquiring and maintaining servers, administering networks, and constantly evaluating storage requirements give way to reduced hardware costs, multiple-site file sharing and speedy decision processes.

Using infrastructure-as-a-service, businesses pay for just the resources they need instead of continually adding hardware to keep up with ever increasing database requirements.  Instead of the demands of upgrades, fixes and enhancements that keep the traditional IT staff spinning, Bluelock can host applications on its servers with maintenance either being provided by the application provider or by internal IT staff.

Another advantage to a client is the attention paid by Bluelock to data security.  Traditional IT facilities, including “hot-site” business continuity centers, are subjected to SAS 70 reviews and other security audits.  With Bluelock’s attention to security and compliance requirements, firewall installations and its production ready Virtual Datacenters, data, applications and access policies easily conform to client needs.

While the term “Cloud” at first seems an “out there” concept, it may be the best thing to happen to technology since the elimination of punch cards.

Bluelock and Colt are joining forces as VMware vCloud Datacenter service providers to offer a Federated Cloud solution for global enterprise clients.

Listen to Greg Branch, director if IT architecture, Colt, and Bill Busch, director of strategic partnerships, Bluelock as they talk about the partnership and what it means for enteprise clients and the global cloud computing market.

A Federated Cloud for Global Customers | Bluelock & Colt

Bluelock is in the midst of getting ramped up for our favorite event of the year - VMworld 2011. Last year we had a blast in San Francisco, and this year Vegas will surely live up to its potential. As a leading certified vCloud Datacenter provider, Bluelock is excited to make a big splash with a major announcement around our Bluelock Virtual Datacenter capabilities. Stay tuned.

More importantly, we're planning on having a lot of fun with our partners, prospects and friends. The fun starts Sunday night where we're sponsoring the #VMunderground event on Sunday night. This will be my first experience with the event, and after hearing such great things, I can say that I am incredibly enthused!

If you've seen us at VMware events earlier this year, yes we'll be bringing lots of energy (literally). So stop by if you need a pick-me-up!

Make sure to add these sessions to your event schedule:

• #CIM3254 Real-world Cloud Experiences: Enterprise IT leaders discuss public and hybrid cloud deployments (Wednesday, August 31, 2:00 PM)
• #CIM2750 Are All Clouds Commodity? Key Technical Considerations and Customer Experiences (Monday August 29 and Wednesday August 31, 11:00 AM)
• #SPO3966 Case Studies: How to Build a Cloud Infrastructure that's 100X Easier to Manage (Wednesday, August 31, 8:30 AM)
• #CIM2961 Federating vCloud Services - How to Best Deploy Your Applications Amongst Multiple Cloud Service Providers Worldwide (Thursday September 1, 12:00 PM)

At this year's Chicago VMware vForum event, Jake Robinson (@jakerobinson) met up with David Davis (@davidmdavis) to chat Bluelock Virtual Datacenters and Powershell commands.

Jake's been up to some really cool stuff as it relates to Powershell automation between private and public clouds. He dives into some of the work he's been doing with PowerCLI in conjunction with the vCloud API. And if you're uncomfortable with command lines and scripting, Jake talks about how you can use the vCloud Connector for vCenter to view your internal datacenter and Bluelock VDCs in one pane as well as to upload and download VMs.

"Essentially, if you can say it in English, I can write it in Powershell." - Jake



Check out Jake's Powershell work at Github.com/jakerobinson

Check out more from David Davis on the VMwareVideos.com blog.

“To meet our clients’ business requirements, we need to be able to scale up and scale down very quickly with no disruptions. The only way we can do that is with the architecture we’ve built using VMware and F5 BIG-IP LTM.” - Pat O’Day, Chief Technical Officer, Bluelock

As a provider of Virtual Datacenters hosted in the public cloud, Bluelock needs to be able to seamlessly deliver traffic across servers for heightened performance and efficiencies. BIG-IP LTM provides intelligent traffic management that efficiently distributes traffic across virtual machines to optimize server utilization. By offloading SSL processing from the virtual servers, BIG-IP LTM also frees up server capacity to handle other processes.

Check out a recent case study video where O'Day talks about the benefits of F5 load balancers for cloud computing.

“BIG-IP LTM helps us maximize the efficiency of our virtual environment so we can pass those efficiencies along to our clients, all while ensuring the high performance and availability that our clients require,” says O’Day.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, DC and works in every region of the world to strengthen democratic institutions, safeguard elections, advance citizen engagement, and support open and accountable government.  In a recent joint case study with Bluelock and VMware, NDI highlighted some major technology improvements they experienced after moving to VMware vCloud Director using Bluelock Virtual Datacenters.

Chris Spence of NDI commented:
"VMware vCloud Director helps us better serve our users, including those in developing countries. We can configure virtual servers, point to URLs, and fire up applications within a matter of minutes. It's less costly for us and less time-consuming, and because it's a virtualized deployment, the hosting costs are low."

NDI needed to deliver applications to users across the globe who lack the infrastructure and resources to host them. The organization was also charged to drive efficiencies in the application delivery process so that it can focus on core activities; an important effort for a nonprofit organization. By using vCloud Director with Bluelock VDCs, NDI is now able to act quickly by provisioning new, stable environments within minutes, they've minimized hosting costs and freed up their engineers to focus on higher value tasks.

Read the full case study.

Learn more about NDI:
http://www.ndi.org/

VMware’s July release of both a product upgrade and new software suite consolidates options for enterprise virtualization. The Palo Alto powerhouse in cloud computing technology announced its latest advance for the hypervisor program, vSphere®5, featuring significant capability improvements. Corresponding to the new version’s introduction was the innovative bundling of five supporting software programs, previously sold independently. As just under half of all server operations are currently performed virtually, this latest technology development is a bid to position VMware and its software provider companies in a strong position to capture future enterprise integration.

VSphere®5 noteworthy expanded capacity stats:

• 32 virtual CPUs
• 1 Terabytes (1,000 M) of memory
• 1 Million I/O operations per second

VSphere®5 Suite components:

Analogous to Microsoft’s bundling of personal computing software, VSphere®5 adds to its standard vCenter Operations three other programs previously sold independently as well as an optional fourth:

• vCloud Director – Allows the flexibility of having two virtual machines with similar tasks separate operations only after the tasks begin to differ, with the second virtual machine deployed to independently operate once the need arises.
• vShield Security – Recognizes and differentiates compliance and security certificates and separates critical data into the appropriate level of security.
• vCenter SRM – (Site Recovery Manager) Advanced disaster recovery capability, automated to reduce recovery time, ensure timely storage of critical information and maintains system reliability.
• VSphere storage option – Allows multiple small to mid-sized businesses to store information in dedicated storage space while ensuring that data is not compromised with other enterprises.

A glance into the (near) future of information management?

With estimates placing enterprise virtualization near the 50 percent level, pricing follows function for most of these product choices involving a hybrid of virtual and hardware processors. The new release comes with a reduced number of subscription options, allowing companies the scalability they need as they integrate into the cloud.

Existing VMware customers and potential enterprises looking to invest in the transition from computers dependent on hard operating systems, servers and storage to virtualization can adapt the innovations available with vSphere®5 to their own positioning strategies. By weighing ROI expectations and the flexibility of a platform that allows an “all in” approach to cloud computing, even companies just beginning to test the waters of a this revolutionary trend will be well-served.

SOURCES:

http://blogs.vmware.com/console/2011/07/vmware-unveils-vsphere-5-and-the-cloud-infrastructure-suite.html
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/vmware-shows-its-cloud-strategy/
http://gigaom.com/cloud/vmware-exposes-its-plans-to-be-the-os-for-the-cloud/  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/12/vmware_cloud_infrastructure_announcment/  
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Virtualization/VMware-vSphere-5-Delivers-AllinOne-Virtualization-Storage-Package-280187/

A guest post by Nand Mulchandani, CEO, ScaleXtreme

ScaleXtreme is the first cloud-based systems management product, and we're excited to announce support for Bluelock Virtual Datacenters as an integrated, preferred platform. With ScaleXtreme, Bluelock clients can manage their servers directly through a web browser, giving them the ability to:

• Connect your Bluelock account to ScaleXtreme and use it to launch new vApp's directly through the system
• "Live Browse" the file system on your server and conduct a variety of operations on files, as well as look through application/package inventory on those systems
• Stats and monitoring of your machines for key variables such as CPU, Memory, Disk, Network and Processes
• Upload scripts (shell, command shell, Powershell, etc.) into the cloud - fully version controlled and ready to run across multiple systems
• Schedule and run scripting jobs across multiple machines and record historical data
• Use the integrated App Store to get one-click access to a rich library of scripts including popular packages (JBoss, etc.) and Bitnami stacks
• And more!

Instead of using "command shell" or other manual techniques, you can use ScaleXtreme to do many of the tasks that you would otherwise do manually. Bluelock clients can signup for free at http://www.scalextreme.com/register to start managing machines in a few minutes.
 
ScaleXtreme is also hosting a free webinar on July 12 @ 10am PDT where we will take clients through the product and show how to signup and start managing machines with Bluelock in a few minutes. Registration link is http://bit.ly/jR2WhX.

About ScaleXtreme:
Built from the ground up to be simple, scalable, and social, ScaleXtreme’s product aims to transform the way IT admins manage their Amazon EC2, VMware virtual machine and physical server deployments. ScaleXtreme was founded by a team with deep expertise in enterprise software and systems management, including Bladelogic and VMware, and is backed by Accel Partners.

Check out this video where Deepak Puri (VMware) and Bill Busch (Bluelock) talk about enterprise cloud computing needs and how the vCloud Connector plays a vital role in hybrid cloud.

Building the Cloud for Tomorrow | VMware & Bluelock

Recently, BlueLock, F5 and VMware partnered up to deliver a whitepaper entitled, "Achieving Enterprise Agility in the Cloud." BlueLock truly values our relationship with both providers, not only because they are great companies, but because together we can create solutions that help the end users get even more from their cloud investments.

Whitepaper overview:
Cloud computing continues to be one of today’s most intriguing IT technologies, yet enterprises are still weighing whether it can help them achieve their business goals. Working together, VMware, F5 Networks, and BlueLock offer integrated solutions that help enterprises develop agility so they can easily and efficiently use cloud resources on demand to meet their changing needs.

For more information and to download the full whitepaper, click here.

On-Demand business intelligence and management reporting organization to utilize BlueLock’s cloud computing services for Disaster Recovery

(Indianapolis, Indiana – January 19, 2011) – BlueLock, an experienced provider of cloud hosting and managed IT services, announces that iPartners, an on-demand business intelligence and management reporting company for the property and casualty insurance industry, has selected BlueLock as its cloud provider. With the announcement, iPartners will use BlueLock’s cloud-based disaster recovery services to back up their data and systems hosted in Atlanta, GA.

“After a lackluster experience with a different cloud provider, we knew we needed an organization with superior customer service and processes and procedures in place to ensure our data and systems are up and ready when we need them,” said David Zebrowitz, director of technology, iPartners. “We look forward to not only utilizing BlueLock’s highly available, scalable and secure platform for our disaster recovery needs, but also their vast cloud experience as we see them as a trusted and proven partner.”

“We are excited to work with iPartners and help them achieve their business goals cost-effectively and with the enterprise level of service they require,” said Brian Wolff, vice president of sales, BlueLock. “BlueLock’s cloud-based disaster recovery offers them the flexibility and scalability they will need as they continue to grow, with the performance, security and client services that is backed by our world-class BlueLock team.”

Delivering pre-configured, secure and resilient virtual IT environments which scale on-demand, BlueLock’s VMware-based cloud services offer enterprises world-class infrastructure-as-a-service solutions. BlueLock is a VMware vCloud Datacenter Services certified provider.

About iPartners
iPartners was founded in 2004 by a group of industry veterans with over 10 years of successful business intelligence and data warehousing consulting experience. iPartners, a software-as-a-service company, strives to change the way P&C companies collect the information they need to make decisions to make the entire process straightforward, reduce the investment of time and money and deliver a solution that adds value to the businesses they serve. Today the organization is leading the P&C industry with “on-demand” management information and analysis solutions, serving over 35 customers and processing over 15 million policies. The “on-demand” business model provides major advantages over traditional on-premise technology products. For more information, visit www.ipartners.net.

Bluelock and VMware share a special technology relationship. Since 2006, Bluelock's cloud has been powered by VMware technology. Since then, the relationship has flourished.

Bluelock is now a certified VMware vCloud Datacenter provider. Bluelock's VMware vCloud Datacenter, provided by VMware, is built on VMware’s cloud infrastructure technology including vCloud Director, vCloud API, VMware vSphere and vShield security. Using these VMware technologies, Bluelock provides a common management and security model that enables workloads to move between internal data centers and the Bluelock Public Cloud. VMware vCloud Datacenter delivers consistent and auditable security and performance through SAS-70-Type-II certifications as well as technical capabilities such as network isolation, role-based access control and directory services integration.

Listen to what Scott Archer, a local (Indianapolis) VMware sales engineer has to say about the relationship between Bluelock and VMware and how it enables the end customer.

Congratulations to Brian Modiano for being named a 2010 finalist in the Indianapolis Business Journal's CFO of the Year awards in the private company category.

During a hectic, high-growth year for BlueLock, Modiano "helped smooth the company’s growing pains by, among other things, leading the development of a monthly reporting system, implementing a weekly cash flow reporting mechanism and using comprehensive forecasting tools that allow management to effectively monitor BlueLock’s growth and performance."

Also in 2010, Modiano played a key role in raising $2.5 million in equity.

“We had to build the airplane while flying it,” Modiano said. “We effectively managed this extremely aggressive growth while taking the company’s operational systems from a raw startup to an early-stage, established company.”

BlueLock congratulates Brian on a job well done this year!

Check out the full story on Brian's nomination.

Enjoy some cloud computing level-setting from BlueLock CTO, Pat O'Day, as he explains the basics of cloud and looks at how people are talking about the subject today.  He also explains the real business needs of IT, why you should care about cloud hosting, and explains the cloud in terms of a journey - not a destination. Pat was the moderator of the TechPoint Summit 2010 panel titled "Innovation in Cloud."

Other cloud computing videos.

Check out Mike Rudicle, CIO of Adesa, talk about the drivers and entry points in cloud computing. Rudicle participated in the TechPoint Summit 2010 panel titled, "Innovation in Cloud."

Check out the other cloud computing videos.

At the 2010 TechPoint Summit, Milestone Advisors' Doug Allgood talked about his experiences with cloud computing.  He specifically referenced DECA Financial and the major savings they gained. Listen to Doug talk about what he views as the major benefits and roadblocks around hosting in the cloud.

View DECA Financial Cloud Computing case study.

At the 2010 TechPoint Summit, VMware's Dave Schroeder talked about "working in the clouds" (as his daughter describes it), innovations taking place today in the cloud computing market and how the hybrid cloud movement is making cloud hosting a more viable and compelling option for enterprises. Check out his portion of the "Innovation in Cloud" panel.