Cloud App Integration .com

Recent VMware acquisitions include Zimbra, CloudRocket, and Mozy. [SearchCloudComputing]

Author Jo Maitland here details how VMware’s recent acquisitions will be integrated into their primary offerings. Much of the technology acquired when VMware bought Springsource, for example, was simply being offered as virtual machines without deep integration with some of VMware’s other offerings, particularly vCloud Director.

VMware last week announced an update to vFabric, which is designed to more fully integrate VMware tools with Springsource ones. According to the press release, vFabric introduces several new features, but makes no mention of integration vCloud Director. vFabric works on top of VMware’s virtualization platform, vSphere. It also adds a new licensing model and scalabity options.

In her story, Maitland points out that VMware has discussed integrating vFabric with other PaaS offerings, including those from Google and Salesforce. Integration with VMware’s own PaaS services is yet to be a point of focus.

Salesforce.com expands PaaS offerings at Dreamforce event

Salesforce.com announced several major updates to its Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings at DreamForce last week.

Salesforce unveiled Force.com 2, the next iteration of its proprietary development platform. For the most part Force.com 2 seems to simply wrap up existing Salesforce offerings—SiteForce, AppForce, Vmforce, and ISVforce—into a single package, but there are a few new changes.

Database.com, the cloud database that operates Salesforce.com services and applications, will be available for public use. That means that it can manage data from applications created independently of the Force.com platform as well as those made within it. Data integration between Force.com applications and non-Force.com apps should become simpler as a result.

Salesforce.com also announced the purchase of Heroku, a Ruby PaaS provider. Ruby is a popular language for lightweight, fast applications and is known for its ease of use and active development community. Heroku supports the Ruby on Rails application framework.

Database.com, Heroku buy get varied reviews from observers

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Minnesota Parks and Recreation Board integrates SaaS to improve facilities management (Press release)

The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board (MPRB) chose software from The Active Network, Inc., to manage data and ecommerce tasks. Active Networks’ Active Communities SaaS offering is designed to help recreation communities manage information and registrations. The MPRB uses it to gather information about visitors to its parks, schedule park events, and confirm reservations for location rentals online. MPRB was able to integrate preexisting data within Active Communities.

VMware buys Integrien and TriCipher (Press release)

At VMworld today VMware announced the purchase of Integrien and TriCipher. Integrien is provider of analytics and application performance management. It can be integrated with VMware vCenter to support and automate cloud applications. TriCipher is a provider of SaaS security tools, and is positioned to be integrated within hybrid cloud environments.

A look at the statistics behind cloud computing (Computer World)

Appirio’s Ryan Nichols takes a look at some recently published statistics behind cloud computing and offers his opinions on and explanations of each. Notably, he points out that mobile and social computing are growing faster than anything has ever grown. Integration of mobile and social technologies into existing software structures will be essential moving forward.

Update on VMforce, the Salesforce—Spring collaboration for Java in the cloud (Network World)

Rod Johnson, general manger of the SpringSource division of VMware, gives an update on VMforce, the collaborative effort between VMware and Salesforce.com to create a cloud platform for Java developers. (VMware recently purchased SpringSource, creators of the wildly popular Spring Java development framework.) Johnson says that integration between Java apps built on Spring and data stored on Salesforce.com is the “killer app” of VMforce. He also points out that VMware collaborated with Google to let Java developers use Spring on Google App Engine.

Cloud computing may hurt systems integration consultancies (ComputerWorld)

The author summarizes a recent Forrester report which suggests cloud computing will adversely affect traditional IT services business models. That affect is the result of decreased demand for systems integration: While a strong market once existed for consultants who could perform systems and application integration work on site, much of that integration is now being handled in the cloud by the software vendors themselves.

Cloud-based dialing software provider InsideSales releases new Integration Suite and API (Press Release)

Sales assistance software provider Inside|Sales announced a new version of Integration Suite and a new Application Programming Interface (API). The new version includes both REST and SOAP APIs for improved data access and sample code in numerous languages. InsideSales.com offers an automated dialer that integrates within SalesForce.com CRM applications.

Ariba grows business with SaaS integration (ZDNet)

Spend management software provider Ariba grew its business by helping their existing customers integrate the companies newer SaaS tools with the software customers had in place.

Small SaaS provider gives Google Apps competition by offering Google Apps integration (WSJ)

Zoho, a SaaS provider that offers familiar Web-based e-mail, calendar, spreadsheet, and document applications as well as Web-based CRM, invoicing, and human resources services, looks to compete with Google Apps by helping users integrate the services of each: Many Zoho applications are designed to work alongside or within Google Apps.

Cloud-based Virtual Desktop may limit need for SaaS integration (Information Week)

VMware partner Virtuon Software announced recently Virtual Desktop, based on VMware View, which allows users to access a desktop over the Web. That means that desktop software can be used remotely and SaaS equivalents may not be needed.