Define your unique path to the cloud by joining the experts and our HP Cloud Advisors at HP Discover 2012. This year’s event will feature over 90 cloud related sessions from case studies to hands on labs focused on all forms of cloud computing.  A marquee of the event will be the rollout on HP’s new Converged Cloud strategy showing their private and public cloud offerings.

Time to renew your New Year resolutions - not just those you set for yourself, but for your IT organization. How have you done since the beginning of the year? Here's more on how SaaS and Cloud can help.

Join HP's Chief Software Evangelist, Paul Muller (@xthestreams), and Raf Los (@wh1t3rabbit) in the fifth of six deep dive videos into cloud computing. In the first part of this short video, Raf discusses the four steps to managing and securing the cloud.  The two IT experts also talk about application build, replication and deployment automation as well as how to maintain integrity in the service delivery. Raf explains how a template-driven model helps with application portability. Finally the video concludes with a discussion of the importance of real-time risk, security, and performance indicators.

A provocatively titled blog post on CIO.com caught my eye: “CIOs' Cloud Strategy Must Include Public Cloud Services.” In particular, this comment by the author resonated with me: "... it has become clear to IT management that this public cloud computing 'fling' has become a serious commitment." The author posits that public cloud adoption isn't "headstrong software engineers covertly conducting shadow IT on their own time." Instead, enterprise public cloud adoption is being approved by executives in the applications group.

HP Evangelist Paul Muller (@xthestreams), and Christian Verstraete (@christianve), HP Chief Technologist, Cloud Strategy, as they tackle the tough questions you’ve asked us via Twitter, blogs and other channels about cloud computing. In this, the fourth of six deep dive videos, watch as Paul and Christian delve into the details about HP Converged Cloud that was announced in April 2012. 

I was recently at an e-Gaming event on a panel talking about cloudThe eGaming industry experiences ultra-fast application lifecycles, very short lived applications, and a maniacal focus on what differentiates them.

Does it matter if your cloud is open or proprietary?  How does HP's Converged Cloud deal with this?

The cloud is the hottest thing in computing today, and enterprises are eagerly seeking to adopt it. They realize that cloud computing holds the promise of curing today’s “data center sprawl,” with its colossal complexity, considerable costs, and substantial capital investment. For their part, service providers see the cloud as a catalyst for revenue growth. Executives and leaders look forward to the day when information technology will be delivered as a pure service throughout the organization, metered, ubiquitous, and available on demand much like electricity or water.

You know you want to move some applications and some data into the cloud, but how do you determine whether a private, public or hybrid cloud is best.  You asked and we answer in this new video. 

Join Join HP's Chief Software Evangelist, Paul Muller (@xthestreams), and Raf Los (@wh1t3rabbit) as they host the third of six deep dive videos into cloud computing. In this episode of “This Week in the Cloud,” HP's Christian Verstraete (a.k.a. - The HP Cloud Source) gives expert tips for deciding how to distribute applications and data in your hybrid cloud deployment model. 

Join HP's Chief Software Evangelist, Paul Muller (@xthestreams), as he hosts the second of six deep dive videos into cloud computing. In this episode of “This Week in the Cloud,” Paul takes a look at answering some of the questions you’ve been asking about real-world cloud deployments

Written by Frances Guida

I remember back in 1976 when my parents bought a new family car (a light green Ford station wagon we affectionately called Kermit).  They picked all the features they wanted:   air conditioning – yes; power windows – no; large pockets for maps – yes.  They ordered the car, and then they waited three months for the car to be built and delivered. 

Customers are adopting SaaS (Software as a Service) applications at an incredible rate. Is this a threat or an opportunity for the IT organization ? Can IT compete against the brand new, mobile ready solutions from the SaaS market ? Does it make sense for IT to redevelop the capabilities provided by SaaS vendors ?

I recall sitting in a meeting where some university IT engineers were raising questions about how their applications fit snugly into the IaaS, PaaS or SaaS level.

That conversation made me queasy, and also left me a little disturbed since IaaS, PaaS and SaaS or (anything-aaS) are just loose terms used to define the scope of the cloud service. And the truth is there are no hard-and-fast rules to say that if you do not do an anything-aaS, you are not deploying things on the cloud.

It also started to dawn onto me that the terminologies in cloud computing are starting to consolidate, while restricting people to think in confined, predefined ‘zones’.

“Is this for public cloud or private cloud or hybrid cloud or community cloud or …..?”  is one of the first questions I get asked when I talk about my research on tracing data on the cloud. You get the picture by now.

The key thing is that cloud is a concept, and I don’t think we should strictly restrict it to looking at service stacks (e.g. anything-aaS) or even in private or public boundaries. The key is that when you use the cloud, you must be able to increase utilization of the infrastructure, pay-as-you-use and gain access anywhere.

When we survey the cloud industry, we find that several companies are either steering towards the private or public cloud ends of the spectrum. For example, when you mention public clouds, people would think Amazon ECS When you mention private clouds, many other vendors such as EMC come to mind. However, to be stay true to high accessibility, availability, utilization and low cost, we need to have a cloud that does not confine to just one or the other model.

Enter HP’s Converged Cloud. Being a researcher, I am always skeptical about new terminologies or buzzwords. But after reviewing it, and thinking about its potential; I believe this is as close as you can get to the true blue cloud computing environment.

To top it off, I have a gut feeling that Converged Cloud will return us to the fundamentals and vision of cloud computing, and even propel HP to be the choice cloud provider of several enterprises, large and small. If you do not believe me, or are simply curious, go ahead, check it out here.

Explore related content:

•           HP Converged Cloud announcements

•           HP Converged Cloud solutions

In my previous blog post “Cooking in the cloud made easy” I summarized the value of Cloud Maps and how they can simplify and speed the creation and deployment of cloud services. Although I liked the Betty Crocker analogy I used in the previous post, today I’d like to talk about the business value of Cloud Maps—or recipes for cloud computing services.

Do you agree that rather than cloud being thought of as a technology, it’s really a business solution?  Is that why cloud is really revolutionary?  Watch and video and then share your thoughts. 

In a new short video, HP Chief Software Evangelist, Paul Muller, chats with Blogger Ben Kepes outside of HP's Tech Day in Sydney about consumerization  of cloud and the benefits of Open Stack.

HP Chief Software Evangelist, Paul Muller, wraps HP's Tech Day in Sydney by speaking with I Know IT's CEO, James Vickery, and Andy Pattinson of Progress Consulting on the topics of CIO mindset on migration, converged cloud, cloud security, application security, and data sovereignty. 

Join HP's Chief Software Evangelist, Paul Muller, as he hosts the first of six deep dive videos into cloud computing. (And check out the gorgeous scenery in Australia and Belgium.)  In this first segment,  Paul is joined by HP's Chief Technologist for Cloud Strategy, Christian Verstraete, for a Cloud Q&A. View the video to hear Christian's responses to the following common Cloud and Converged Cloud questions:

Okay maybe cooking is not the best analogy for cloud computing, but if you’ve already been designing or “cooking up” your own cloud services, whether for internal use or to provide services to others, you have probably run into difficulties—just like in the kitchen.  

By Samantha Booton, Marketing Program Manager, ISS HP Americas

The new HP ProLiant Gen8 represents a shift in server updates. Instead of simply looking at increasing speed and compute power, HP engineers and designers revolutionized the entire server experience. Over 150 innovations were integrated into the servers—all with the goal to improve the efficiency of the servers and improve how IT professionals relate to the servers.

By Samantha Booton, Marketing Program Manager, ISS HP Americas

The HP ProLiant Gen8 servers offer insight and functionality never seen before. ProLiant Gen8 features exclusive HP ProActive Insight architecture providing IT professionals with insight into the current health of each server.  ProActive Insight architecture offers powerful new capabilities that automate and simplify system provisioning, troubleshooting and software updates. 

Over the last couple days you probably have seen a lot about HP Converged Cloud, but that is not the only thing we announced. To start building a converged cloud there are many products and services that help, and we have a first set of them available. In this blog I am highlighting some and giving you a pointer to more. So, interested?

One of the great benefits of industry standards is that when you purchase something, you don't have to worry about whether it's going to work with what you already have. Take the VHS standard as an example. You knew that if your VCR blew up, you could buy a new one and all your VHS tapes would still be able to play in your new machine. Think about other items in your household—you can buy a new mattress from any manufacturer and it would still fit in your bedframe; a new memory card would still work in your camera; and a new wireless access point would still support your wireless devices. This is interoperability and portability in action.

Authors:  Brad Vincent, Partner Business Manager, HP Software - Fernie Fuentes, HP Presales Manager, HP Software

Your enterprise understands the benefits of integrating a cloud system into your database infrastructure. You want to quickly and efficiently provision your resources and propel your business forward. HP Software Solutions provide multiple tools to assist and guide your datacenter through this important transformation. 

According to several sources, hybrid cloud is becoming the norm. That's nice and simple, but how build a hybrid cloud that can be accessed, managed and secured seamlessly? That's what HP proposes with its Converged Cloud vision. It’s the industry’s first strategy and portfolio based on a single architecture that enables enterprises (often IT departments) to build, manage and secure hybrid environments. Are you interested in more? 

Just 4 more cities left on the schedule for you to be able to catch the HP Pathways to Cloud. These cloud roadshows help you explore and understand the key elements involved on the path to cloud.

What would a current technology conference be without a number of sessions dedicated to cloud and hybrid delivery?  At HP Discover Vegas 2012 cloud is one of eight key topics that will be explored in-depth with dozens of breakout sessions, technical labs and track keynotes.

If you can make it to only one IT event this year, Discover Vegas should be on your short list. But don’t delay. Register now to save $300 off the conference fee and reserve the best sessions before they are closed.  Read this post for a selection of the best cloud sessions at HP Discover Vegas 2012.

The new HP ProLiant Gen8 servers offer insight and functionality that has never been seen before. ProLiant Gen8 features exclusive HP Active Insight Architecture, which provides IT professionals with unheard of insight into the current health of each server.  Active Insight Architecture offers powerful new capabilities that automate and simplify system provisioning, troubleshooting and software updates.

Enterprises today are being forced to do more with less. This trend is directly impacting the IT department as well. They are asked to be more competitive despite decreasing budgets.  Innovation and growth are being stifled and choked out. IT centers are running out of capacity and space in their traditional brick and mortar data centers.

When you look at your storage infrastructure, what do you see? Do you see an infrastructure design that might be old enough to go to college? Traditional storage infrastructure was designed for predictable, physical workloads.  That is a sharp contrast to a prediction that 80 percent of x86 application workloads will be virtualized by 2016. 

When HP announced the launch of the new Gen8 ProLiant Servers, the world was introduced to the world most self-sufficient server. This server was built with cloud deployments in mind.  These new ProLiant servers are the building blocks for your cloud journey.  They automate processes and reporting. These servers also increase the speed of initial set-up and integration into your environment. This significantly increases the speed that your whole IT environment is utilizing cloud benefits.