It was an interesting week of events at Cloud Connect 2012 in Santa Clara last week, with key announcements from players such as Citrix amongst many, who announced the general availability of Citrix CloudStack(TM) 3, the first release of the market leading open source cloud platform under the Citrix brand. Nimbula, the Cloud Operating System Company, also announced the introduction of Nimbula Director 2.0 which delivers Amazon EC2-Like functionality to VMware Users. Sungard announced that it will provide highly available cloud backup through Amazon’s Direct Connect services to both Amazon Web Services and SunGard cloud customers. Gigaspaces Technologies also announced the general availability of Cloudify, GigaSpaces’ new cloud application platform that enables organizations to easily on-board and manage any application, on any cloud, with zero code change.
It was also an opportunity for CloudNow, the non-profit organization to recognize 10 outstanding women in cloud computing for their contributions, accomplishments and thought leadership at the first awards presentation. CloudNow is a non-profit consortium of the leading women in cloud computing, focused on using technology for the overall professional development of women from around the world by providing a forum for networking, knowledge sharing, mentoring, and economic growth.
The following women in cloud computing were honored with Top Women in Cloud Awards: Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco, Lauren States, CTO of Cloud Computing, IBM, Vanessa Alvarez, Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations, Forrester Research, Jamie Dos Santos, President of Terremark, a Verizon company, Jill T. Singer, CIO of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Becky Swain, Founder of the Cloud Security Alliance, Lori MacVittie, Senior Technical Analyst, F5 Networks, Ellen Rubin, Founder of CloudSwitch, Terremark, a Verizon company, Dawn Leaf, Senior Executive for Cloud Computing, NIST, Jamie Erbes, Cloud Labs Director, HP Fellow, HP.
With the event falling during Valentine’s week, heart-themed parties were in abundance, especially at the Rackspace “Party your heart out” evening with candy hearts, a chocolate waterfall, balloons and great company in attendance. Having reported revenue growth beyond expectations last week, Rackspace celebrations were definitely in the air if not in a heart-shaped way.