Earlier this month, Infrastructure as a Service enabler Hexagrid (News - Alert) headed to the West Coast to join 10,000 individuals at Cloud Expo, an event that is dubbed as one of the most important tech conferences of the year.
While at Cloud Expo, Hexagrid had some very exciting news to share – the fact that it has joined forces with Boston Limited, an established distributor and integrator of Supermicro Computer server and storage solutions, to showcase the market-ready Unovie cloud which streamlines service provider delivery of private cloud solutions. Targeting the service provider market, the two companies co-engineered the Unovie private cloud, which provides speed-to-market advantages for both solution providers and end-users. Unovie utilizes Boston Quattro and Hexagrid’s Infrastructure as a Service software bringing five times more data space efficiency over traditional computing resources.
Now back in its hometown of Missouri, Hexagrid sat down with TMCnet to discuss the highlights of Cloud Expo.
“Cloud Expo went great, with lots of exciting and interested prospects,” Hexagrid's CFO and Vice President of Strategic Development Joseph Seibel told TMCnet. “The Telx and Boston relationships are now in full swing and the market seems really excited about getting a cloud solution that is easy and ‘just works.’ They are tired of the complexity of trying to piecemeal together their own cloud. My favorite part would have to be my panel. It was one of the most entertaining and well discussed panels I have ever been on.”
Seibel spoke in the Enterprise Cloud Computing Track in a session titled “Dedicated Hosted Private Clouds – Is Deploying Them Really That Hard?” The panel addressed the issue around the perceived complexity of deploying cloud solutions for internal or external consumption and answered questions such as, “Could I have my own cloud?” “What skills do I need?” and “How do I decide and is it really possible to achieve business value from cloud in 45 days or less?”
In addition to the great conversation that took place during the panel, Hexagrid was also particularly interested in the conversations happening right on the exhibit floor.
“The biggest point of conversation seemed to be that people just want to get cloud up and going,” Seibel said. “They are tired of all the confusion and genuinely want to start moving forward and reaping the benefits of what cloud promises. Everyone seemed to be much more educated this year about what cloud is and what part of the cloud they needed to best help them move their business forward. I believe this points to 2012 being a banner year for cloud technology acceptance and implementation.”
For those that did get a chance to visit the Hexagrid booth, Seibel hopes that participants were able to take away the fact that building clouds does not need to be as complex as some of the pundits would like you to think.
According to the Infrastructure as a Service enabler, companies don't need to spend excessive amounts of money on consulting and integration work and there is a solution available to make their lives much easier when it comes to building clouds.
So what can we expect from Hexagrid as we move into 2012?
“More easy to deploy cloud solutions that ‘just work’ and that cater to many different market needs, whether those be needs for performance or needs for speed-to-market,” Seibel said.
Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves