Posts Tagged ‘EMS-Cortex’

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Cortex Cloud Control Panel Boosts Hyper-V Automation

April 15, 2010

Over the last few months, EMS-Cortex has tapped huge demand in the market for Hyper-V provisioning software. As a result, some of the world’s greatest Cloud service providers are now using the Cortex Cloud Control Panel for provisioning Microsoft Hyper-V virtual servers. Some of these service providers are listed below;

MHA Application Hosting – NZ (www.mhaltd.co.nz)
OBT – Australia (www.obt.com.au)
Cloudeon – Denmark (www.cloudeon.com)
Atos origin – Netherlands (www.atosinabox.com)
Integral networks – USA (www.integralnet.biz )
nGenX – USA (www.ngenx.com)
Bluefire (Dimension Data) – Australia (www.bluefire.com.au)

The Cortex Cloud Control Panel makes Hyper-V virtual server provisioning and management fast & easy via the same “single plane of glass” used to provision applications and services such as Exchange, SharePoint, XenApp, OCS, BlackBerry, SQL Server, Dynamics CRM, Terminal Server, IIS, DNS etc.

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Global Cloud Innovation born inside Telecom New Zealand

April 8, 2010

Telecom New Zealand has been in the news for all sorts of reasons over the last couple of months, but in my opinion the most interesting story has been overlooked…

The Cortex Cloud Control Panel started off its existence over ten years ago, as a set of provisioning services, management tools, security tools and reporting systems which were custom-built for Telecom New Zealand by a company called EMS-Global. Telecom NZ was a pioneer in the field of hosting business applications and services, which meant that much of what was needed to manage its offerings had to be custom-built.

Over the following years, a product called “Cortex” evolved out of the original collection of tools and utilities used at Telecom. Most of the code used in Cortex was re-written from the original VBScript to the more current VB.NET. The services company EMS-Global was reborn as the product company EMS-Cortex.

Today the Cortex Cloud Control Panel is used around the world by many leading Telco’s and Hosted Service Providers, including TELUS, USA.NET, FPWeb, Melbourne IT, Unisys and Atos Origin.  The list of products supported by Cortex has continued to expand and now includes; Exchange, SharePoint, Broadsoft, OCS, SQL Server, IIS, DNS, Virtual Servers, Backup Solutions, Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop, Terminal Services and more.

Every month, an average of five additional Service Providers from around the world, sign up for Cortex to manage their Cloud Offerings.

Telecom New Zealand remains a loyal customer of Cortex through its Gen-i business unit that uses the latest version of Cortex to manage its Cloud offerings, including Exchange, SharePoint and other hosted business applications.

Additionally, Telecom NZ is a significant shareholder of EMS-Cortex, through its investment in TMT Ventures, which owns a 60% stake in the company.

It could be said that Cortex, which was born in Telecom New Zealand, gives new meaning to the phrase “Land of the Long White Cloud”…

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Cloud is a Paradigm Shift for Business Applications

April 5, 2010

Cloud Computing is the most significant paradigm shift to happen to the business software applications industry since the wide-scale adoption of Personal Computers and MS-DOS by businesses in the 1980’s.

After being predicted for many years, the paradigm shift is happening now and is being driven by;

  • Real economic and practical requirements of businesses around the world (influenced in part by the recent global economic downturn).
  • Major technology advances and economies in Cloud delivery infrastructure.
  • Shifting attitudes of business people towards widespread usage of the Internet.

None of the above drivers is a constant. Each is getting stronger as time goes on. From my involvement in the Cloud and applications industries, I believe we are now starting to experience the tipping point.

Paradigm shifts create winners and losers. Business models are changing and what worked in the past and present, may not work in future.

Those in the business software industry that don’t embrace the new world of the Cloud fast enough will be left behind and pay a heavy price. Those that are quicker, stand to make the gains of what a paradigm change has to offer – and this can potentially be a huge win.

The good news for many business application developers is that their applications need not be browser-based nor multi-tenanted to operate successfully in the Cloud. Conventional Windows applications can be delivered economically in the Cloud using technologies such as Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop or Terminal Services and “virtual multi-tenanting”, achieving savings on hardware costs, can be achieved using virtual servers. Servers are now more economical to run as Hosted Virtual Servers using virtualization technologies from Microsoft and Citrix, such as XenServer and Hyper-V. A Hosted Virtual Server can be considerably less expensive over its lifetime than an on-premise Hardware Server.

The good news for Hosted Service Providers is that they can get to market faster with new Cloud virtualization technologies and application delivery offerings using a smart provisioning solution such as Cortex from EMS-Cortex. With Cortex, Hosted Service Providers can be up and running within days, reinvented as “Cloud Providers” and in time to capture the new opportunities.

Business Application Software Vendors need to team up with “Cloud Providers” for a win-win collaboration in the Cloud. The market and the technology is ready!

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Cloud Control Panel is the New Channel for Hosted Apps

March 29, 2010

Apart from the fact that global sales of the Cortex V8 Cloud Control Panel are at an all-time high, there is another aspect of this product that I find quite exciting. That is, the growing channel-to-market for hosted applications that is offered by Cortex’s expanding base of Cloud Service Providers around the world.

Cortex is used by Cloud Service Providers to provision and manage applications, services and infrastructure (such as virtual servers, web servers, back-up systems, DNS etc) that they deploy in their Clouds. Without Cortex, the Cloud Providers would either need to hire an army of system engineers to manually provision and manage their hosted offerings to their customers, or they would need to develop their own bespoke Cloud Control Panel. Cortex is popular because both of these alternatives are potentially very costly and involve significant business risk.

Not only is the base of Cortex users growing, but the base of supported applications is also growing rapidly. Cortex’s main “bread and butter” applications are Microsoft Hosted Exchange, SharePoint, Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop, MS SQL Server, MS IIS, MS CRM, Blackberry, Backup Agent and Hyper-V or XenServer. These are common to most Service Providers, but more and more the envelope is being stretched to include ERP, CRM, Accounting, Payroll, Hosted Office and other business applications.

Cortex provides an API/SDK, so that third parties can add support for other applications. Software companies around the world are realizing that getting their applications added to the Cortex application list gets them potential global exposure through Cortex’s expanding user base.

From another perspective; the increasing base of Cortex’s supported applications is also opening up new channels to market for its Cloud Service Provider clients. Cortex’s delegated-administration capability lets application resellers or channel partners have their own branded Cloud Control Panels from which they can provision and deploy hosted applications on demand – selling the services of the Cloud Providers in the process.

So I believe that the Cortex Cloud Control Panel is the connection between two worlds – the Cloud and Software Channel Businesses (such as ERP & CRM). Exciting stuff!

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Cortex Provisioning Optimizes ERP Cloud Delivery for Partner Channels

March 24, 2010

A combination of strategic features in EMS-Cortex’s “Cortex version 8.x” Provisioning System and Citrix’s new XenApp and XenDesktop product lines enables Managed Service Providers to add significant value to the offerings of existing global SME-focused ERP Partner Channels. The combined technologies enable complex ERP applications to be delivered in a fast, templated, repeatable, “cookie-cutter” approach which is provisioned and managed on-demand by the ERP partner and/or the customer’s IT department from their own branded provisioning portal.

The Cortex product enables Service Providers to delegate administration of provisioning and management of hosted solutions to resellers and reseller channels. It can also provision from a quick & simple process, the ERP application together with a selected template database, vertical solution add-ons, virtual servers, SQL database server and other business support applications such as email, SharePoint, CRM, VOIP etc. This facilitates up-sell opportunities for the ERP partners to sell a complete Cloud based offering, as well as the ability to quickly deploy temporary demonstration and pilot test environments.

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop technologies enable Windows applications (most of the popular SME ERP applications are of this format) to be deployed through the Internet in a similar way to web-based applications. Furthermore, Citrix XenServer (or Microsoft Hyper-V) enables the full virtualization of each customer’s Private Cloud, which means the ERP Partner can customize the ERP solution in a similar way to an on-premise configuration.

The end-result is a win-win-win situation for the customer, the ERP Partner and the Cloud Provider.

The customer benefits from reduced capital outlay, a quicker time to value and a more professionally managed environment for mission critical servers and databases.

The ERP partner benefits from faster, repeatable, cookie-cutter deployments giving a known and easily accessible operating environment – meaning quicker delivery times, easier support access and the ability to up-sell complementary Cloud services.

The Cloud Provider or MSP gets a new channel to market where ERP channel partners are now selling their Cloud services.

My prediction is that over the next 12 months we will see a dramatic shift to the Cloud with SME ERP deployments. EMS-Cortex, Citrix and Microsoft will be key players in making this happen.

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Introducing EMS-Cortex

March 20, 2010

EMS-Cortex is a business unit of the Enprise Group, based in Avondale, Auckland, New Zealand and very much focused on delivering its Cloud Provisioning system “Cortex” to the Hosted Service Providers of the world.

Cortex is fast becoming a very important and popular product within the world of the largest Hosted Service Providers and is working in close partnership with software giants, Microsoft and Citrix to deliver cutting edge virtual cloud infrastructure solutions.

As CEO of the Enprise Group, I’m very proud of EMS-Cortex and the amazing progress it has been making in the global world of the Cloud.  The Cortex team are extremely dedicated and talented and the product is without doubt the world leader in its class.  We are in fact now stretched to keep up with global demand for the product and you will find Cortex customers amongst the largest, leading service providers in every corner of the world.

People outside the Hosting industry regularly ask me the simple question, “What does Cortex do?” and I still feel quite challenged to construct a simple answer that is easy to understand yet still technically accurate.

Below is my best effort to date to describe what the Cortex product is;

Cortex is a browser-based software package used by Cloud Providers, Telcos, Internet Hosting Companies and Large Corporations to manage and automate the provisioning of hosted applications, hosted services, infrastructure, customers and users in their hosted environments.

Without a product like Cortex, these businesses that manage large numbers of users, services, applications etc would require a large team of network engineers to manually manage, configure and install applications, user accounts, passwords, environments, virtual servers etc.  Cortex automates all of this and makes it quick and easy.

Applications most commonly provisioned by Cortex are Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, CRM, Blackberry, Citrix Desktops, Microsoft IIS, SQL Server, Backup Agent, Hyper-V and other business applications including CRM, ERP, Payroll etc. An SDK is available to enable third parties to add their own software to the Cortex offerings.

Cortex portals, complete with on-line web store are typically configured to look like part of the Service Provider’s own web site and can optionally enable customers and resellers to provision their own applications, systems and users.

Stay tuned for my future posts on EMS-Cortex, because some exciting things are going to happen in this business this year…

EMS-Cortex Web Site

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