Latest News from Apache Developer's Journal

AMD Tops Top500

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

The world’s most powerful supercomputer is Jaguar, the recently upgraded Cray XT5 rig at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, according to the new semi-annual Top500 list. Jaguar’s roughly 250,000 processors went from quad-core Opterons to six-core Istanbul Opterons and now delivers 2.3 petaflops of theoretical peak performance or 1.75 petaflops on the Linpack benchmark, dethroning IBM. Four of the top five machines are now AMD-based. This and Intel’s money too. My, my. It’s Cray’s first time in the top spot. HP’s got 210 of Top500 machines; IBM’s got 186. China’s got number five.

Five Simple Tips for 2010 Marketing Planning

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:25:00 EST

Admit it. You haven’t started working on your 2010 marketing plan. Sure, you’ve thought about it and maybe you even built an outline. You may have held a meeting or two to discuss. And your calendar for 2010…well, it’s already full of trade shows, weekly meetings with your marketing team, scheduled promotional mailings, and perhaps [...]

Pin the Tail on the Social Media Icon

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:45:00 EST

You've seen them. You can see them on this site, those odd little widget-icons that grace the footers and headers of blog articles. These aren't graphical garnishes, but yet another avenue to get your content out of your own little blogosphere and into the social media networks. What do they do? In a nutshell, they create the potential for major traffic.

Go Viral

It's not rocket science. In case you haven't noticed, the web has been evolving lately. It is no longer just a one-way information channel. Social interaction, i.e., social networks on the internet have exploded in popularity in just the last few years. So, if you haven't already, it's really worthwhile to spend some time on some of the big players, especially in the social bookmarking arena: Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Stumbleupon, and others. This is where stories are submitted and ranked by the crowd. Get familiar with them and even participate. You'll notice that there is a real buzz, especially in the comments sections. Okay, so what do the icons have to do with the sites? Simple: the icons simply provide your visitor with a quick and easy way, a shortcut to submit your specific content to the crowd, so the potential is indeed huge. Likewise, Facebook users and Twitter users who are already logged into their accounts will post or Tweet your article out there.

As mentioned previously, inbound links are one of the most effective ways of improving your Google rankings. This is the good SEO stuff you really want! For example, if thousands are clicking links on Twitter or Digg about YOUR "5 Ways to Improve Window Cleaning Widgets" article and linking to YOUR blog, guess who benefits on Google when someone searches for "Improve Window Cleaning?"

Content is Still King, But..

Substance matters, it's true and unavoidable. Providing worthwhile, unique information that is interesting and relevant to your readers is probably the most important reason why someone would use those social icons. However, if you spend some time on bookmarking sites you will notice some elements that are common to many of the "most Dugg" stories.

Image courtesy of KnowTheBook

ParaScale Introduces Open Private Cloud Storage Platform

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:15:00 EST

ParaScale today introduced ParaScale Cloud Storage software (PCS) R2.0. The new release targets enterprise storage administrators who must economically scale capacity and performance, and service providers who want to offer a variety of storage cloud services. ParaScale’s open solution leverages any commodity hardware running Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS or CentOS, and can integrate applications directly onto storage nodes. PCS R2.0 also provides integration capabilities into virtualized environments and web services.

Quest OnDemand Goes Live

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:23:00 EST

Systems Management as a Service (is there an acronym for this yet?) is finally becoming a reality. Today at Microsoft Professional Developer Conference we have announced beta launch of Quest OnDemand our online IT management services. This is one of the projects which have been consuming most of my time for the last year so I [...]

How 12 Million People Brand Your Company 27.3 Million Times Every Day

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:17:00 EST

That’s 12 million people engaged in 27.3 million conversations on Twitter every day. They are branding your company even if they are not mentioning you. That kind of branding is called “ignoring the non-entity.” In financial social media marketing and every other industry it’s the branding of the invisible. This increased and increasing volume of “conversation” is indicative of the heightened adoption of social media in general and reflects a significant shift in how marketers approach customers. The shift from talking “at” customers to having a conversation “with” them has begun in earnest.

Microsoft to Open Source the .NET Micro Framework

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:30:00 EST

(I'm currently in Tokyo, so I'll leave my insights into this news for another time)

Today, at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced the release of version 4.0 of the.NET Micro Framework, but also that they are open sourcing the product and making it available under the Apache 2.0 license, which is already being used by the community within the embedded space.

The .NET Micro Framework,a development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices, was initially developed inside the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator, but recently moved to the Developer Division so as to be more closely aligned with the overall direction of Microsoft development efforts.

See complete blog post here >

The Planet Joins Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:30:00 EST

The Planet today announced its membership in the Microsoft WebsiteSpark program. Through this partnership, The Planet provides small Web development and design firms with free Microsoft licenses for the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, key tools for building and designing rich Web sites. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, The Planet offers the program to qualified companies through its status as an official Network Partner and Hosting Provider.

Global DataGuard to Deliver Security for Cloud Computing Environments

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

Global DataGuard today announced plans to develop a Unified Cloud Security solution by extending its award-winning, systemic security architecture to support cloud or hybrid networks, in addition to premise-based environments. With commercial availability scheduled for Q1 2010, Global DataGuard’s Enterprise UTM for Cloud Computing offering will fully integrate patented network behavior analysis and correlation technology with PCI-enabled intrusion detection and prevention; vulnerability scanning and management; log management, analysis and monitoring; network access and policy monitoring, and comprehensive threat management capabilities, including prioritized network, global and vendor threats and vulnerabilities. This unified security anywhere™ approach will enable customers to fortify their existing premise-based, cloud or hybrid network infrastructure and future-proof current IT investments with a holistic architecture and applications portfolio that provide virtually unlimited scalability, full regulatory compliance and up to a 60% reduction in network security costs.

Questions Data Center Operators Don’t Want You to Ask

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:15:00 EST

We live in a world of clouds, SaaS, outsourcing, and Everything over IP (EoIP). The challenges IT professionals face when trying to sort through the maze of technology, globalization, SOX, HIPPA, PUE, and on,… result in daunting confusion. Mix in a few overzealous sales people, an inquiring CFO, incorrigible users within the organization, and you have all the pre-requisites for a world class, globalized, migraine headache.

ERP To-Do Checklist

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST

A mid-market ERP solution purchase can be completed rapidly and successfully if you ask yourself and vendors the right questions.”

Is Vendor Lock-In Really a Bad Thing?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

When you look at the success of some very proprietary solutions and the loyalty with which customers defend them, you have to wonder if vendor lock-in is really as bad a thing as we sometimes make it sound.

The subtext in the discussions around data portability and interoperability in general in cloud computing is really about vendor lock-in. Those driving efforts to come up with solutions that allow customers to pack up their data and head to another provider are primarily concerned about the dangers of being locked-in to a single vendor solution.

But given the loyalty to some brands and products that are unapologetically proprietary and inherently create a vendor lock-in situation, one has to wonder whether vendor lock-in is really a bad thing and if it is, for whom?

Take the iPhone. Really, you can take it because I don’t have one and don’t want one. But millions of people do and they are incredibly loyal to this proprietary device. Apple does not apologize at all for its business practices that support a locked-in user base, and it is unlikely that consumers even consider this to be a negative when purchasing an iPhone. Indeed, the proprietary nature of the iPhone is not what keeps me from purchasing one.

After all, it does what it does and it does it incredibly well, with an ease that makes it usable by just about anyone. What’s to complain about? Yes, your data is locked up inside the iPhone, you aren’t going to pack it up and take it to a Blackberry or the next big thing. But users don’t seem to care and certainly don’t even consider that they might one day want to change. They’re in love with their iPhone, loyal as hell, and don’t really care.

THAT’S CONSUMER-SIDE, IT IS DIFFERENT

Is it really that different on the IT side of things? The same loyalty that drives absolute obsession with iPhones is present in IT. How many times have you heard we’re a vendor-X shop? Did you stop to consider why they were a vendor-X shop and why they didn’t seem concerned that they might be locked-in to that vendor with no easy way to migrate to a new vendor’s product?

It isn’t just loyalty, it isn’t ignorance of options. Explaining all the benefits of some other product isn’t necessarily going to win the day there. Folks are loyal to a product because it (a) does what it says it does, (b) solves all their problems and (c) the company isn’t going anywhere.

It’s only when one of these is violated that you begin to hear rumblings of anger from the basement of IT. If a product can’t do something or doesn’t do it to the satisfaction of customers, then they get angry. But as long as all three conditions are met, generally speaking, IT has no good reason to migrate to another solution. They don’t seem to care that they’re locked in to the solution because it’s solving their problems. As long as the vendor appears stable and has long-term viability, it isn’t really a problem, is it?

IF IT’S NOT BROKE, DON’T FIX IT

The increasingly complex nature of data center architectures makes a migration from one product to another difficult and painful regardless of the level of “lock-in” . As with applications, the more integrated an infrastructure solution is into the architecture and business processes, the less likely it is to be replaced. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it is probably a truism in IT more than any place else today.

Increasingly organizations do appear to be looking more closely at the possibility of vendor lock-in with any given solution, even open-source solutions that may result in vendor lock-in because of the commercialization of support by a single vendor. Cloud computing is no exception, by the way, as indicated by a CIO.com survey focused on cloud computing issues:

That's according to a new CIO.com survey of 240 IT professionals involved in technology-purchasing decisions. The June 2009 survey, "CIO On-Demand Services Survey," reveals that cloud computing fears regarding security, data management, total cost of ownership, regulatory and compliance issues, and vendor lock-in have actually increased as compared with results from a similar survey in August 2008.

The thing is you rarely see an organization worrying about vendor lock-in where standards exist to ensure the interoperability and portability. If not of the configuration and/or meta-data required, at least of the interoperation with other IT systems. Take switches and routers, for example. All utilize standards like IP and even though the configuration of a Cisco switch is very different from an HP ProCurve switch, you rarely see anyone getting up in arms about being “locked in” to the configuration specifics of either option. The most important part of choosing most infrastructure solutions, it would appear, is that there is internal standardization on a given platform. If all the switches in the organization come from one vendor, it makes management just that much easier. Sure, a forklift upgrade from one switch vendor to another may be painful in terms of the configuration necessary to achieve such a migration, but still that doesn’t seem to engender “vendor lock-in” fears. IT isn’t agonizing over the decision, paralyzed with fear. We geeks fear change, but not that much.

There are no standards around configuration, just protocol support. The maangement scripts used to automate tasks or integrate the CLI with the rest of the infrastructure and management systems (Sonoa Systems’ CEO Chet Kapoor has a great example of this kind of “lock-in” in his post “The API is more than the new CLI”) developed for switch Brand X are very unlikely to work with Brand Y. If we look at more complex solutions up the infrastructure stack, we find more and more customization available and, unforutnately, that flexibility comes with a price: with each customization it becomes more and more difficult to extricate that solution without a great deal of effort from the infrastructure.

But without that customization what do you have? You have a turnkey solution that may suit your needs today, but not tomorrow. And when tomorrow rolls around you’re left with the option of (a) solving a new problem with a new product, adding to the overall management burden and costs to maintain or (b) forklift replacing the solution with one that’s more flexible and provides the ability to adapt to new problems and technologies more easily.

STANDARDS NOT A PANACEA HERE

So organizations have come to demand flexibility and customization, but still fear (according to surveys, at least) vendor lock-in. Part of the appeal of open-source software was that organizations could have the source and modify it at will. Customers were no longer at the mercy of vendors to wait for new features. They didn’t have to worry about not being large enough to command a vendor’s attention and have every request attended to as soon as possible. They were in control.

Vendors in the infrastructure space have heard that demand and have addressed it. Juniper’s new unified operating system allows development of custom solutions to be deployed across their network infrastructure devices. Cisco provides the means by which their ISR (Integrated Services Router) can be “upgraded” with custom developed software. And F5 has long offered its network-side scripting solution, iRules, as a means to customize its unified application delivery infrastructure to support the quirks, flaws, and unique environments in which applications are deployed.

Not even standards can address this problem completely, as the customization and flexiblity of a solution is usually unique to the solution and, thus, there exist no standards to make it “easier” to back out and migrate to a different solution. You can’t run a solution developed on JunOS on a Cisco ISR, and vice versa. You can’t execute iRule logic on a Cisco ACE. These are solutions unique to the vendor that, although you may have the source code you can’t easily migrate to a new solution without work. It’s important to remember, too, that just because solutions offer the means to customize and extend does not mean it’s a requirement. You can still use a Cisco ISR without writing an extension, you can use a BIG-IP without ever writing a single iRule, and you can run a Juniper device without developing new functionality. It’s optional.

So the question becomes is the flexiblity and customization that customers have demanded for years and that inherently leads to deeper integration into the organization, making migration admittedly more difficult, worth it? Is vendor lock-in really a bad thing or is it just the fear of being locked into an emerging technology where long term viability of the vendors is in question?

Go ahead, sound off. What’s your opinion? Is any feature/option/situation that leads to vendor lock-in inherently bad? Is it sometimes acceptable? Do you really even care or is this “fear” really a competitive vendor fear and not nearly as important to the enterprise as some vendors would have us think?

Has the possibility of “vendor lock-in” ever stopped you from making a purchasing decision or is it just a “potential risk” that’s weighed in the overall decision making process?

Technorati Tags: MacVittie,F5,iPhone,Cisco,ISR,Juniper,JunOS,BIG-IP,iRules,ACE,VMware,CIO.com,cloud computing,infrastructure

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Oracle Fusion Middleware Deployment Guides

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

Well hello again!

After a week off with H1N1 (don’t get it, you really won’t like it), and another week or two catching up, I’m finally back in the saddle and there’s plenty to talk about – some of it stuff I should have been talking about weeks ago.

Today we’ll discuss the Deployment Guides some smart folks here at F5 have thrown together to go with the Oracle Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment guides (that some smart folks at Oracle threw together).

First up, props to Oracle for an astounding document library that you can access sans login. It’s not new, but if you’re not familiar with it, check it out.

What our staff did is take the documents from their library that reference places where BIG-IPs fit in, and created complimentary documents to show how to configure your BIG-IP to fit the Oracle Fusion Ecosystem.

So here is the list of Oracle documents, and F5 complimentary documents. Between them, you can make your Oracle Fusion environment adaptable, reliable, and zippy. At least I claim you can :-).

Oracle Enterprise Deployment Guide	F5 Deployment Guide
Oracle® Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Identity Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/core.1111/e12035/toc.htm (see Section 2.2.1)	Deploying F5 with Oracle Fusion Middleware Identify Management 11gR1 http://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/oracle-identity-management-big-ip-dg.pdf
Oracle® Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle SOA Suite 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/core.1111/e12036/toc.htm (see Section 2.2.2)	Deploying F5 with the Oracle Fusion Middleware SOA Suite 11gR1 http://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/oracle-soa-big-ip-dg.pdf
Oracle® Fusion Middleware Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle WebCenter 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/core.1111/e12037/toc.htm (see Section 2.2.2)	Deploying F5 with Oracle Fusion Middleware WebCenter 11gR1 http://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/oracle-webcenter-big-ip-dg.pdf

I’d love to take credit for this chart or any of its contents, but this time I’m just the messenger, other people created all of the content, and the chart is essentially a recreation of one I received via email. If you’re using Fusion Middleware and have F5 gear in-house, they’re worth checking out to see how you can benefit from them.

And that gets me back into the blogging groove… Expect to hear more from me in the near future.

Don.

Orchestra Contributing to Future of E-Commerce

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:30:00 EST

It is one thing to use open source software and evangelize its capabilities to a marketplace. It is quite another to actually attempt to contribute to that software. Orchestra is now investing in contributing to open source projects that benefit the small and midsize business market.

A Swift Kick to the IPv6 Backside

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:00:00 EST

The institutional horror stories continue, the old Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) address space is nearly gone, and if we do not transition to IPv6 with its nearly unlimited address space the Internet will grind to a halt.

Essentials of Cloud Computing by Gartner VP Tom Bittman

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:15:00 EST

Gartner Data Center Conference, Dec 1-4 in Las Vegas delivers tactics and strategies on your hottest issues: next-stage virtualization, the impact of cloud computing, best practices in cost optimization, managing escalating energy costs, the aging infrastructure, and more.

NEC launches media sales business unit (please do not adjust your sets)

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:14:00 EST

NEC is known in the business as a manufacturer of high quality professional monitors, so it was only a matter of time before the company took the natural next step and became an advertising media company.

What? Huh?

Yup. The Japanese display giant's US wing has launched a new product called VUKUNET, a Web browser-based media booking and placement platform for digital out-of-home networks. This is probably a far less than perfect analogy, but at the core of the system is the the DS equivalent of Google AdSense. Network operators can sign up, enter their sites and meta data describving their network, venues and audience, and opt in on ads.

The system works across different Windows-based software platforms, dropping a file in a slot or container in a playlist and firing up the VUKUNET player when the time comes in the schedule. This means, in theory, the VUKUNET software can co-exist with a media-centric platform like BroadSign, EnQii or CoolSign. RiseVision and Omnivex are platforms described as partners.

VUKUNET is also a content management system, so if you are a network operator, you could in theory use it as THE platform instead of SaaS platforms, and if you opt in to the ad program, or buy NEC panels, the software is free. Yes, free.

VUKUNET (www.vukunet.com) helps digital signage network owners generate incremental income by making it easier to connect all screens that currently have time/space available on their networks to advertise. Ideal candidates are networks that have locations with heavy foot traffic, substantial dwell time (time spent in front of the screen), strategic monitor placement, numerous locations in key demographic areas, and that can run a variety of ads from different advertisers instead of being focused on a single brand. Retails stores, hotels, airports, rail and bus terminals, universities, hospitals, convention centers, stadiums, museums and restaurants are a few examples of these locations.

VUKUNET is a breakthrough in digital out-of-home advertising because it is the only platform that connects all digital signage networks, with the ability to provide the largest single reach in the industry. Advertisers and ad agencies that formerly had to contact hundreds of potential network owners to determine rates and availability can now use the companion ADVUKU ad-serving platform to search for the best networks in any location. In addition, the proof-of-performance automated technology enables networks to receive a consolidated payment on a monthly basis for all the advertising that ran.

The VUKUNET platform is completely agnostic, meaning ads can be distributed to screens from any manufacturer, not just NEC and networks that are using any CMS (content management system). There is no charge to become a member of VUKUNET. It consists of VUKUNET Ad Manager, which enables networks to run ads on their screens and an optional VUKUNET CMS, which is a fully-equipped SaaS (Software as a Service) Content Management System available for free to VUKUNET Ad Manager participants as well as NEC Display hardware customers.

Interesting development. Somebody was going to take a run at an AdSense-like system for DOOH, but I am thinking not too many people would have picked NEC as floating in with a Death Star. The free SaaS platform offer will be awfully compelling to a lot of small network operators for obvious reasons, and the lack of confidence in start-ups that have tried the (sort of) free thing goes away when the platform is offered by a major display company.

I was told in a meeting with NEC that the platform was built by NEC US and that it has been tested out on several platforms. Development too about a year.

No demo was available to pound around and so I cannot pass any real judgement on the software and the breadth of offer. One year is NOT a lot of time to develop something that is robust and fully shook out, and companies that have been doing this for many years are still adding new functionality.

The larger question is how NEC will make out getting into the media sales business. They intend to have advertising sales execs calling on agencies. Making that bunch fit into the culture of a technology company is a big challenge. It would seem to make more sense to have Adcentricity or someone like them do the sales and let NEC do what they're good at. But Adcentricity has its own media sales planning engine.

NEC plans to make its money through media sales revenues and processing fees on interests, like aggregators, who use the system. Networks that opt in get a piece of the ad revenue. I was not bright enough to ask what the split was.

The track record of big companies diving into a line of business that is somewhat foreign is not good. But who knows. There's painfully little margin is selling panels, so due credit to NEC for thinking way outside the rectangle.

Job Search Tips for Gen Y College Grads

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:07:00 EST

BusinessWeek’s October 2009 issue highlighted “The Lost Generation” and the job search woes of young college graduates. With unemployment rates now at a staggering 10.2 per cent, the highest in 26 years, college grads are finding it especially difficult to secure their first career gig. In fact, many are unemployed or employed in jobs not requiring a college degree.

i365 Collaborates on Cloud Data Protection Solution with Microsoft

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

i365, Inc., today announced a collaboration with Microsoft on development of a heterogeneous solution that will allow IT managers to extend Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 across non-Microsoft platforms and into the cloud, using i365’s EVault data protection software and cloud-connected storage solutions infrastructure. The combined solution will be available in several configurations. The first configuration will include an appliance-based backup solution, powered by Seagate® technology, which is scheduled for delivery in first half of 2010 with the release to manufacturing of DPM 2010. This collaboration includes both technology and joint go-to-market components.

Jeff Burt from eWeek Covers the Vordel Cloud Service Broker Announcement

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:53:00 EST

Jeff Burt has posted an article on eWeek covering the Vordel Cloud Service Broker announcement last week at the vordelworld conference:

The
read more

Create SEO Plan

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:20:00 EST

Learn How To Create SEO Plan: Following are the steps that I think are crucial in any SEO plan or strategy. The article will a little longer than usual, but I believe it will be noteworthy and helpful to most of the people. Let's start the SEO plan.

Competitive Analysis:

Competitive analysis is one such step you should take in the very beginning of your SEO efforts. It should be right at the top of your to-do list, along with keyword analysis and tagging your web site. In fact, you should probably do a competitive analysis even before you begin tagging your site. Get a list of 3 of your major competitors and note the following points:

Site rankings:

Page saturation: How many of the competition’s pages are indexed?
Page titles
Meta data
Site design
A robots.txt file
Content quality and quantity
Link quality and quantity

Prioritizing pages:

You should realize that not every part/page of your website requires equal amount of work and attention. Similarly, if you have a long list of products then you should focus on high demand product pages first and then move on to other product pages or conversely if you can not manage the high competition at the beginning then you should focus on those products which have demand but less competition; however it all depends on your overall plan but make a decision first and then stick to it, so that you can always know what is working and what not.

Site assessment:

Your SEO assessment should be a document that outlines the current standing of the main SEO elements of each page. It should contain columns for the element of the site you’re assessing, the current status of that element, what needs to be improved in that element, and the deadline for improvement. It’s also helpful if you have a check box next to each item that can be marked when improvements are completed and a column for follow-up, because SEO is a never-ending process. The elements that should be considered during an assessment include:

Site/page tagging: The meta tags that are included in the coding of your web site
Page content: How fresh is your content? How relevant is it? How often is it updated? And how much content is there?
Site links: links to be in-context, meaning the link must come from or lead to a site that is relevant to the page that is being indexed.
Site map : make sure it’s accurate and up to date.

Note the strategies you plan to use:

It include strategies that can be efforts such as submitting your site or pages from your site to directories manually and planning the content you’ll use to draw search crawlers, or they can be keyword marketing plans or pay-per-click programs you plan to use. Also be sure to include a time line for the testing and implementation of those efforts as well as for regular follow-ups.

Follow-up:

Follow-up is also an essential part of your SEO plan. Give your plan at least three months but no more than six between checkups.

User experience:

User experience is a little harder to quantify than other site-ranking elements. It’s easy to say that users will find your site simple to use, that they will find the information or products that they’re seeking, or that they will have reason to return to your site. But in practice, that’s a little more difficult to achieve.

Site interactivity:

We now live in the Interactive Age. Most of us want to interact with the web sites we’re visiting. That interaction might take the form of a poll, the ability to comment on a blog post, the downloading of a file, or even a game that relates to the site content. No matter what the type of interaction, users expect it, and search crawlers look for it.

Why is interaction so important? Simple. If you can influence a user to interact with your site, you have more of a chance of gaining a goal conversion. Goal conversions are the completion of some form of activity designed to gather further information about your user. A goal conversion can be something as simple as enticing users to sign up for a newsletter, or it can be more specific, like persuading them to make purchases.

Interactive forums: When you’re creating your web-site content, consider interactive forums. If you’re adding articles to your site, give users a forum in which they can respond to the article, or a comments section. This leads to more frequent updates of your content, which search crawlers love. The result? An interactive relationship with your web-site users will keep them coming back, and give an extra boost to your search engine ranking.

Navigation:

Take the time to design a navigational structure that’s not only comfortable for your users, but is also crawler-friendly.

Caution about cookies: Any navigation that requires cookies will cause the crawler to be unable to index the pages.

Understanding entry and exit pages:

Although this aspect is a part of another topic i.e. Landing Page Optimization, but you should note that in your SEO plan about your top landing pages and how do you want to improve them. [You can find separate tutorials on Landing Pages and How to Optimize them on this very site, kindly check this: Landing Page Optimization]

Creating great content:

Two points should be kept in focus while developing content contemplating and completing. Great content starts with the right keywords and phrases. Select no more than three keywords or phrases to include in the content on any one of your web pages. Have a keyword density of 5 to 7 percent the freshness and focus of your content is also important. Also remember to write powerful page titles with compelling calls to action.

Using blogs:

One reason many companies began using blogs on their web sites was that blogs are updated frequently and they’re highly focused on a specific topic. This gives search engines new, relevant content to crawl, and crawlers love that.

Consider implementing a content strategy that includes regularly adding more focused content or expanding your content offerings. It doesn’t have to be a blog, but news links on the front page of the site, regularly changing articles, or some other type of changing content will help gain the attention of a search engine crawler. Don’t just set these elements up and leave them, however. You also have to carry through with regular updates.

Keep the links included in the content active:

Dynamic content links can occasionally break. Be sure you’re checking this element of your content on a regular basis and set up some kind of a user-feedback loop so broken links can be reported to your webmaster.

Graphics:

Images or graphics on your web site are essential. You’re not going to be happy with using plain text instead of that cool new logo you had designed for your company, and neither are your users. They want to see pictures.

One technique that will help your SEO make use of graphics on your site is to tag those graphics with alt tags inside the img tags.

You want to tag your images as part of your SEO strategy for two reasons. First, crawlers cannot index images for a search engine (with an exception, which is covered shortly). The crawler “sees” the image and moves on to the text on the page. Therefore, something needs to take the place of that image, so the crawler can index it. That’s what the alternative text does. If this text includes your keywords, and the image is near text that also includes the keywords, then you add credibility to your site in the logic of the crawler.

Duplicate content:

If you must use content that’s not original, or if you must have multiple copies of content on your web site, there is a way to keep those duplications from adversely affecting your search rankings. By using the <robots.txt> or <noindex> tags, you can prevent duplicated pages from being indexed by the search engine. That small tag of code tells the search engine not to index the page, but to follow the links on the page.

Internal and external links:

Links can be incoming, outgoing, or internal.

Using Internal Links:

One linking strategy that’s often overlooked is internal linking. Internal links are those that lead people from one page to another within your web site. This is different from the navigational structure. Internal links are more natural links that occur in the text on your web pages. Without a good internal linking strategy, you run the risk of not having your site properly spidered. It’s not enough simply to have a navigational structure or a site map (though site maps help considerably). You should also have links that lead from one element (like a blog post) to other important elements (like an archived article or news clipping on your site), so site visitors find that moving through the information they’re examining on your site is a natural process that takes place without too much difficulty or thought.

Getting External Link:

Getting links from other websites towards yours is bit time consuming and effort seeking, the techniques require an other article to explain, but I will list common methods to acquire links.

Requesting Links - You can simply ask other related sites to link to you,if you have link worthy content.
Writing Articles
Blogs
Press Releases
Affiliate Programs

I hope this will give you a good start on your SEO project and you can fine tune you SEO plan later on by experience. Kindly share you comments below and If you have got question, ask them here.

First Lesson In SEO

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:42:00 EST

Although it is a first lesson in SEO, but believe me, as far as my experience is concerned, this is the lesson that most seo's learn in the last and the hard way i.e. after many failures. Remember the purpose of SEO is not to SPAM or Dodge search engines nor to fool the internet searcher. SEO is a very responsible task that requires deep thinking and long term focus, rather than short trem benefits. First Lesson: Know Your Audience

The fist and foremost thing that you should focus with all web-site design, the best objective for your site, is to help your visitors achieve a desired result, whether that’s purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or finding the desired information.

You should be able to answer these questions i.e. Why people are coming to our site? Where they are coming from? And what they do once they get there?

If you do not have clear answers for these yet, my advice is to forget everything for now and solve these seemingly innocent and easy but very diffult and core questions first.

Next keep in mind the

Important Elements of a Website

Search engine optimization is essentially the science of designing your web site to maximize your search engine rankings. This means that all of the elements of your web site are created with the goal of obtaining high search engine rankings. Those elements include:

Entry and exit pages
Page titles
Site content
Graphics
Web site structure

The second imporatant thing is :

Search Engine Criteria

Some of the chief criteria by which a search engine crawler determines the rank your site should have in a set of results include:

Anchor texts
Site popularity
Link context
Topical links
Title tags
Keywords
Site language
Content
Site maturity

Much has been said and written about the definitions of these terms that I have listed above, if you have not yet mastered them fully, do not worry, I will clarify them in detail in coming posts, however if you are curious enough, read my internet marketing article on Google Knol and other on SEO at Hubpages.

If you have read these articles and you have questions, feel free to ask them in the commnets below, and I will try to answer them one by one. Thanks

Where’s My SSP!? Introducing the SharePoint Services Architecture

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:45:00 EST

Shared Services Provider. Gone!

The concept of the SSP is no more. It has been replaced with a new concept called the Services Architecture. Your SharePoint installation will not have a separate SSP site like you had in the past. You now manage all of your familiar services like Search, the BDC, Excel Services directly through Central Administration on the new Manage Service Application page. This is where you will go to find familiar screens like Search Administration, User Profiles, and the Business Data Catalog (now BCS). The trick to getting to them, click on the item in the list and then use the Manage button on the toolbar.

I’m not going to go into a lengthy explanation of how it all works (because honestly I don’t understand it all), but I’ll give you a quick run down. Before we start, the term Service is highly overused. In this case it does not refer to a WCF, Web, or Windows service. In this case, Service refers to the actual program be it Search or something that you write yourself. A Service Application is an the configuration of your service on the farm. The provider of the Service will provide you the developer with a Service Application Proxy. This is basically some type of assembly that interacts with the service via WCF. If the Service Application is installed on multiple servers in the farm, a built-in load balancing scheme will be used to distribute request among servers. From my understanding, all of the existing API calls for things like search have been updated to fit into this model.

Effectively the Services Architecture is a new pluggable architecture which makes it possible for third parties to create their own services. I’ll also point out that you can now publish specific services and consume specific servers from remote farms which gives you quite a bit more flexibility. As opposed to the all or nothing we had with sharing SSP services between farms in MOSS 2007. Andrew Connell has a post that goes into more detail on why they shifted to this new architecture. It’s definitely worth the read.

Since the SSP is gone, you may be wondering what’s going to happen with all my code that references the SSP. If you using something like the UserProfile object and using the ServerContext object to reference the SSP, it may or may not work. ServerContext has been marked as deprecated. If you do try to use ServerContext, Visual Studio will tell you to use ServiceContext instead. If you do have SSP specific code, be sure and test it specifically during your upgrade process.

BTW, the start of this post was an obscure reference to another presentation on a completely unrelated topic. I’ll be truly impressed if anyone gets it. :)

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The Cloud Opportunity Window is Now Officially Open

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:14:00 EST

Having gone through a couple of decades worth of technology conferences, a familiar cycle occurs. For the first couple years, technology-related conferences are attended by engineers and operations people. Only after the technology has passed a couple of feasibility gates and begun to hit the business cycle do sales and marketing people take over. Cloud is now officially past the engineering phase, well into the sales phase – and the business community is scrambling to understand the implications of a virtualized world.

Immutable Service Containers @ Amazon EC2

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:10:00 EST

Just in time for the OpenSolaris Developer Conference, we were able to publish new Immutable Service Containers images directly to the Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) environment. Previously, I talked about creating ISCs using our security enhanced OpenSolaris 2009.06 AMIs. Today, I am happy to announce that we have taken the next logical step by making available AMIs that fully incorporate the ISC changes.

MPLS Conference 2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:49:00 EDT

Yes indeed, we had an awesome panel that I moderated at the MPLS Conference 2009 held in Washington D.C. on October 26 2009.

The panel entitled, “Emerging Technologies and Business Architectural Impact: Cloud Computing, P2P applications, Social Networking and Infrastructure Required to Scale”

Vijay Gill, Google
Donn Lee, Facebook
Benson Schliesser, Savvis
Raymond Zhang, BT
Prof. Ashwin Gumaste, India Institute of Technology-Bombay-Visiting Professor at MIT Multimedia Labs
Hokuto Sanematsu, KDDI-America
Paul Geraci, Technology Survey Group
Kireeti Kompella, Juniper Networks
George Swallow, Cisco

Seemed that everyone wanted to be on this panel; so to structure the discussion, I prepared a set of questions for the panelists as follows [with their inputs] - [each question could have been a topic for a separate panel session]:

Silanis Brings e-Signatures to Amazon Cloud Computing

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:45:00 EDT

Server is now available on the Amazon EC2 service. The compelling economics of the ApproveIt Web Server on the cloud give unprecedented access to a fully customizable, electronic signature solution. This enables organizations to gain a competitive advantage by offering differentiated electronic transactions for their customers over the Web, through a call center or in person. Organizations can choose the optimum deployment model for their needs today with complete confidence that they can then adapt the model in the future using the identical production implementation by simply choosing from a public cloud, a private cloud or on-premise Enterprise class solutions like the Silanis ApproveIt Web Server running on the Cloud offer financial service providers a compelling alternative to current delivery models Enabling organizations to rapidly scale critical business applications provide the necessary edge to stay afloat in a highly volatile market. Montreal, QC (PRWEB) October 29, 2009 -- Silanis Technology, the leader in electronic signature process management, today announced at the IBM Information On Demand Conference that its ApproveIt® Web Server is now available on the Amazon EC2 service. This new cloud-based delivery option enables organizations in financial services, insurance, government and other industries to deploy the enterprise-class, electronic signature process management capabilities of the ApproveIt Web Server as rapidly as competitive SaaS-based offerings, while benefiting from the most cost-effective computing infrastructure available today. Using a public or private cloud, ApproveIt Web Server can be easily deployed to enable electronic execution of legally-enforceable and compliant documents required for contracts, loans, insurance, account openings, government services and other business transactions. News Image "The compelling economics of the ApproveIt Web Server on the cloud give unprecedented access to a fully customizable, electronic signature solution," said Tommy Petrogiannis, President and Chief Executive Officer of Silanis Technology. "This enables organizations to gain a competitive advantage by offering differentiated electronic transactions for their customers over the Web, through a call center or in person." The Silanis cloud deployment is offered with IBM's Websphere application server and DB2 database server to provide a complete solution on the Amazon EC2 service. A fully functional solution can be enabled for use on the cloud in the same time needed to setup and configure a competitive SaaS-based offering. Unlike competitive SaaS offerings, however, flexibility and customizability are not compromised in order to deliver a lowest common-denominator solution to all customers. The cloud-deployed ApproveIt Web Server allows each organization to have its unique instance of software that implements their specific business, legal, compliance and IT requirements. Silanis offers both a licensed and a services model for the software to allow customers the flexibility to start on the cloud and migrate the exact same implementation to an on-premise infrastructure if needed at a later date. Alternatively, a services model provides flexibility in buying only as much capability as you will use. "Organizations can choose the optimum deployment model for their needs today with complete confidence that they can then adapt the model in the future using the identical production implementation by simply choosing from a public cloud, a private cloud or on-premise," said Petrogiannis. ApproveIt Web Server on the cloud has identical features and functionality as the on-premise deployments being used by Fortune 500 companies and government organizations. Integrated as a part of mission-critical, production applications, ApproveIt Web Server reduces transaction cycle times, costs, errors and downstream risks of processing paper-based customer transactions. Additionally the solution has been recently certified for use within the IBM Insurance Accelerator Framework. "Enterprise class solutions like the Silanis ApproveIt Web Server running on the Cloud offer financial service providers a compelling alternative to current delivery models," says Dave Mitchell, Director of Strategy and Emerging Business, IBM. "Enabling organizations to rapidly scale critical business applications provide the necessary edge to stay afloat in a highly volatile market." About ApproveIt Web Server As an electronic signature process management solution, ApproveIt Web Server goes beyond simple e-signing to manage, execute, control and monitor customer transactions electronically from start to finish. The solution: * Fully controls the electronic execution of transaction documents * Automates enforcement of business process and compliance rules * Automates the monitoring and reporting of live transactions * Enables updating of documents , data and processes during a transaction * Captures the entire Web transaction producing better legal evidence than paper ApproveIt Web Server provides a highly flexible, customizable and scalable enterprise solution that facilitates integration with any services-oriented architecture, business application and e-commerce infrastructure. The solution supports common business applications and services such as document generation; electronic forms; Web applications and portals; content management; and third party identity verification.

NTFS Logical Drive Deleted After Using Fdisk

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:15:00 EDT

A hard disk can be divided into at most four primary partitions, one of which can be an extended partition. The extended partition can be further subdivided into multiple logical drives. The following reading describes an issue when you can lose an NTFS formatted logical drive in a dual-boot system using Windows XP. While such problems, you should make sure to have a valid data backup to restore it. But if it is unavailable for any reason, you need to use a powerful Windows Partition Recovery utility.

Cloud Computing: Separating Hype from Reality

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:45:00 EDT

Enterprises large and small are drawn by the advantages of cloud computing - pay-for-use, self-service, elastic scalability and the elimination of hardware management – resulting in very low barriers to entry and exit and high agility. However, according to keynote speaker, Richard Sarwal, enterprises are also concerned about security, quality of service, integration, compliance, lock-in, and long term costs of public clouds. Private clouds for the exclusive use of one enterprise can mitigate these concerns by giving the enterprise greater control.

Google Liberates Your Docs

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:31:00 EDT

In a note to the CCIF list, Sam Johnston informed us that Google too has continued on its promise to liberate our data as part of their Data Liberation Front project. This latest Google effort introduces a new feature that makes it much easier to get your content back out of the Cloud using a tool that lets Google Doc's users easily "Convert, Zip and Download." It's interesting to note that both Microsoft and Google released completing "open" initiatives today with Mircrosoft announcing they are opening the PST format for Outlook. It's great to see both companies actively battling it out for "Open Cloud" supremacy.

The Reason Enterprise Architects Should Study Economics

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:42:00 EDT

Thus, it is here that Enterprise Architects, especially those we call Chief Architects, truly show their mettle. It is their experience, coupled with the ability to focus on the right set of variables, understanding the impact of change of those variables and being able to communicate that in a way that allows the business to make effective business decisions, which sets top notch practioners apart from Sr. Software Engineers that the organization placated with a title to keep them happy so they wouldn't leave.

Exploring Policy-Enabled Clouds for the Enterprise

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:00:00 EDT

If you are looking to implement a fully distributed cloud storage infrastructure, then this session is for you. In his session at Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, Ed Beauvais, Senior Product Manager in the Cloud Infrastructure Group at EMC, will demonstrate how to roll out an enterprise storage cloud with EMC Atmos infrastructure and how you can leverage storage policy to increase manageability.

CSC's VP of Cloud Computing to Discuss Orchestration in the Cloud

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:30:00 EDT

Managing various providers and ensuring data and processing are safe, compliant, and trustworthy is a growing concern. In his session at Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, Brian Boroff, CSC's VP of Cloud Computing and Software Services, will discuss how organizations can manage off- and on-premise data, lower operational costs, provide transparency and enable collaboration effectively across public and private networks with trusted, orchestrated cloud services.

Application Transformation Case Study

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EDT

The ongoing impact of the reset economy is putting more emphasis on lean IT -- of identifying and eliminating waste across the data-center landscape. The top candidates, on several levels, are the silo-architected legacy applications and the aging IT systems that support them.

Crowdsourcing: Testing the Limits with John Winsor

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:00:00 EDT

Having grilled some of the top minds in the software business, this installment of Testing the Limits will deviate slightly from the norm. With us this month is John Winsor – author, entrepreneur and crowdsourcing expert. After a successful career as a journalist and magazine publisher, John founded Radar Communications in 1998, where he implemented a [...]

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Uncle Sam Still Matters in Asia and the World

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:30:00 EDT

So, after decades of economic decline, withering criticism from all corners of the world, initial weakness in assuming the role of "the world's only superpower," and a recently completed eight years of unilateral policy that alienated much of the world, the United States remains the country in which much of the world continues to place its hope. Not the UK, not France, not Japan, not China, and certainly not Russia.

Google Trends: Microstock Agencies

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:30:00 EDT

I often mention Alexa Rank to make a comparison among microstock agencies, as you can see in Stock Agencies page. In this post I want to show another tool that can be used to follow the trends in the stock photo market, Google Trends, that lets you compare the world’s interest in some particular topics. [...]

microstock agencies Google Trends is a post from My Stock Photography sponsored by Lookstat - You Create the Images - We Do the Rest

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Homeland Security Information Sharing and Social Media

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:28:00 EDT

Experimenting a bit with Pipes, Twitter, RSS feeds to LinkedIn, etc....follow a nicely "curated" Internet Media collection of Homeland Security/DHS information and tweeting at @dhsinfosharing - and find it under news in the similarly-named Homeland Security Information Sharing and Social Media LinkedIn group.

Sun To Cut 3,000 Jobs, Blames EC

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Sun said late Tuesday that it will be forced to cut 3,000 jobs worldwide over the next 12 months because of “the delay in the closing of the acquisition of the company,” laying the blame squarely at the doorstep of the European Commission and its prolonged investigation into whether Oracle should be allowed to acquire the Sun-owned MySQL open source database.

SharePoint 2010: 12 Hive + 2 = 14 Hive

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:15:00 EDT

If you’re a SharePoint person, you of course have the following path burned into your memory forever.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extension\12

Well pretty soon, you can replace that with:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14

Apparently, Microsoft thought the number thirteen was unlucky. Now, I know they are trying to rebrand this as the SharePoint root (or something like that), but we all know that is never going to sick, so I’ll just call it the 14 hive. Anyhow, this is the new place you’ll be doing a lot of your work. Although with the new Visual Studio 2010 tools, you’ll find that you won’t need to come to this folder nearly as much. In this post, I thought I would take a brief moment to point out what I noticed in the 14 hive and make any comments as necessary. None of the underlying folders really have changed but a few things have been added.

In the root of the 14 Hive, I noticed three new folders

UserCode – files used to support sandboxed solutions
WebClients – used for the client OM I believe
WebServices – many new .svc files

If you are interested in what assemblies are present in the ISAPI folder, here is a quick list. It sounds like some classes have moved to different DLLs, but I haven't encountered any yet.

Microsoft.Office.DocumentManagment.dll
Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.Udf.dll
Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.WebServices.dll
Microsoft.Office.Policy.dll
Microsoft.Office.Server.dll
Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.dll
Microsoft.Office.UserProfiles.dll
Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Actions.dll
Microsoft.Office.Workflow.Tasks.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Runtime.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Linq.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.SingleSignon.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Security.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Extended.Administration.Common.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Extended.Administration.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Extended.Administration.ResourceStorage.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Extended.Administration.Matching.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Extended.Administration.Query.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Security.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.Intl.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow.Actions.dll

I believe all of these are registered as version 14.0.0.0. There is a lot of new things in the hive including features, site templates, etc, but not that many structural changes from what I can tell.

Social CRM Capabilities of KANA 10

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:35:00 EDT

Social CRM employs the wisdom of crowds to improve service delivery. As customers search, shop, browse and work in forums, that information found to be most pertinent can be used to drive success for those that follow. The integration of Baynote CIP and KANA 10 allows KANA's clients to capture and analyze customer experiences, and then to use that information to quickly enhance the service experience. The combined platform allows the enterprise to automatically change, reprioritize and improve information presented to a customer based on the collective input and insight of the crowd.

SOASTA Named “Silver Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Conference & Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:15:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that SOASTA, a leading provider of cloud testing, was named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California. The event is expected to attract over 1,500 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

Google Goes on Offense against Office

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:30:00 EDT

Google is doing something very un-Google. It's stooping to advertise. What started a few months ago with "Go Google" billboards on 101 in Silicon Valley, the West Side Highway in New York, the Mass Pike in Boston and the Ike in Chicago touting Google Apps went international Monday in France, Japan, the UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore at train stations and airports as well as print ads in the Economist, the New York Time, Forbes and the Daily Telegraph and web sites like FT.com and Times Online. Google's trolling for frustrated, cash-strapped Microsoft and IBM business users and claims to have converted two million businesses - up from 1.75 million in June - and 20 million people - up from 15 million - in over 100 countries and over 40 languages to its cloud-based applications.

Akamai Named “Silver Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that Akamai, the leader in web application acceleration and performance management, was named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California. The event is expected to attract over 1,500 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

3Tera Named “Silver Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:45:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that 3Tera, the innovator of cloud computing technology and utility computing services, was named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California. The event is expected to attract over 1,500 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

EMC Named “Gold Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:30:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that EMC, the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, was named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California.

Bycast Named “Gold Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:15:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that Bycast, the leading provider of storage virtualization software for large-scale digital archives and storage clouds, was named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California.

Adaptivity Named “Gold Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that Adaptivity, the IT transformation company, was named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California. The event is expected to attract over 1,500 developers, engineers, architects, IT managers, and hardware and software professionals of every stripe.

Yahoo! Named “Platinum Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:15:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that Yahoo!, a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide, was named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California.

Unisys Named “Platinum Sponsor” of Cloud Computing Expo

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced that Unisys, the leader in high-value technology and business solutions to global enterprises, was named "Platinum Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on November 2 - 4, 2009, Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California.