Bluelock

NetworkWorld has compiled a list of the "10 Most Powerful IaaS Companies" in the public cloud infrastructure as a service arena. This list was assembled by analysts who watch the public cloud Infrastructure as a Service scene very closely. Each analyst was asked to name the companies they believed have the most influence - whether that's measured in market share, mind share, revenue, existing enterprise pull or underlying technology links - in drawing enterprise customers into the realm of public cloud infrastructure. Here's what they had to say about Bluelock:

"As a surprise pick as a market leader in the recently published Gartner Magic Quadrant for public cloud IaaS, this 5-year-old Indianapolis-based cloud provider has been gaining some national name recognition. The company's offering is called Bluelock Virtual Data Center, is based on VMware's vCloud, and can be used to build public, private or hybrid cloud deployments and is driven by a strong portal that includes many tools that allow customers to understand how much and which cloud-based services are costing them the most money."

Virtualization cuts hardware, power and real estate costs by combining multiple servers, networks and storage arrays into virtual pools. But for users like Pat O’Day, Chief Technology Officer at Bluelock, managing those resource pools means wrestling with multiple applications.

IT wants fewer, more comprehensive virtualization management tools. But for now, specialized vendors tackle different challenges. “There’s a backup console, the SAN has a console, antivirus has a console–everything has its own console,” says O’Day. Buying all of those applications and training staffers to use them is costly and makes it hard to tune a virtualized environment to meet changing needs.

HISTalk recently interviewed Andy Hoover, IT Director, at WoundVision. WoundVision is an Indianapolis vendor of risk assessment software and thermal imaging tools for early pressure ulcer detection. They recently migrated their platform from Amazon’s EC2 public cloud computing to Bluelock Virtual Datacenters.

Computerworld’s Robert Scheier explains how virtualization and replication technologies protect data from disaster, while keeping business services humming. Some providers say cloud-based disaster recovery will bring the benefit of true disaster recovery, rather than just backup, to small and midsize businesses that until now couldn’t afford it. Pat O’Day, co-founder and CTO of Bluelock, a provider of public cloud virtual data centers, says customers are increasingly satisfied with cloud security. Many security experts say even public cloud environments in which multiple customers share hardware can be made secure with the proper processes.

Bluelock, a certified VMware vCloud® Datacenter provider of Virtual Datacenters hosted in the public cloud, today announces it was named one of the 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors by CRN. The comprehensive list highlights the most innovative companies across the five major cloud 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.

TalkinCloud.com, a go-to guide for cloud computing in the IT channel, featured Bluelock’s upgrade to VMware vCloud Director 1.5 in their article “Bluelock Datacenters Now Run VMware vCloud Director 1.5,” by Brian Taylor. Taylor reports that Bluelock’s upgrade to VMware vCloud Director 1.5 provides an enhanced user interface and added capabilities within Bluelock’s Virtual Datacenters.

AMD’s lead evangelist, Vlad Rozanrich, spoke with Bluelock’s Directory of Technology, Aaron Branham, about Bluelock’s decision to power their public cloud infrastructure with AMD-based HP ProLiant servers. Branham notes Bluelock’s new POD architecture employs AMD Opteron™ processors because on their price, performance, and platform versatility. Improvement from this hardware upgrade include an increased size of resource pools, fewer devices to manage, 2x density per rack, 4x power savings, and more.

CRN named Bluelock to their 20 Coolest Cloud Infrastructure Vendors list for 2012 for the second year in a row. CRN states these cloud infrastructure vendors host business applications, provision applications on-demand, and store and secure data in the cloud. Vendors listed deliver with private cloud, public cloud or hybrid cloud strategies. CRN notes Bluelock’s strong public cloud support through enterprise cloud hosting offerings. Bluelock Virtual Datacenters accelerate cloud adoption in SAS 70 Type II and SSAE 16 certified datacenters. Bluelock is also among the first certified VMware vCloud Datacenter service providers.

Bluelock today announced the availability of VMware vCloud Director 1.5 in its certified VMware vCloud Datacenter Service. This new release delivers increased agility, while making it easier for customers to adopt a cloud computing model leveraging their existing IT investments.

Registration is now open for Bluelock’s upcoming free webinar “Hybrid Cloud: A Pragmatic Approach for the Enterprise.” Two lucky webinar attendees will win a Kindle Fire! Learn how hybrid cloud is evolving the way IT departments and business units interact with technology and get more leverage from infrastructure resources. Pat O’Day, CTO, will explain the evolving role of IT in the Cloud era and review specific cloud computing use cases. Jake Robinson, Systems Engineer, will demonstrate how a hybrid cloud functions and review tools to help resource and cost management.