Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

LiveOps announced today that it has been named a finalist in the inaugural 2012 Cloud Awards program in the "Best Platform as a Service" category.

The Cloud Awards is a premier international cloud computing awards program that recognizes and celebrates industry leaders and pioneers in the field of cloud computing. The awards program is open internationally across the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Entries are accepted from organizations of any size, whether they are start-ups or established vendors.

"The organizations which have taken part in the 2012 Cloud Awards program demonstrate exactly what cloud computing has to give," said Larry Johnson, Cloud Awards organizer. "We’ve seen world-leading organizations spring up literally overnight to offer faster, more capable and cost-effective solutions than previously imagined. We’ve seen markets become so disrupted they’re unrecognizable. And we’ve seen all of this while cloud computing is still in its infancy."…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

Grazed from Cloud Pro.  Author:  Jennifer Scott.

The public cloud has many benefits. The instant access to extra storage and compute helps in times of need. The pay as you go model means you only splash out for what you use. The lack of license keeps you free and easy to move your data.

But, the one thing we all worry about is an outage. It doesn’t matter how good the service is if you cannot access it and it still prevents numerous companies from putting mission critical data or applications out there.

We take a look at the top five cloud outages this year and keep our fingers crossed the offenders learn from their mistakes…

Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: David Linthicum.

Google announced last week the end of the "experimental" availability of its high-replication data store; it’s now a "real" part of the Google App Engine SDK. This is part of a key 2012 trend: Cloud providers will rush to address cloud computing concerns from enterprise IT — including security, performance, and availability — through the addition of features taken from existing private enterprise computing environments.

In the past, many cloud providers dismissed requests that features be added to replicate what existed in enterprise data centers. Typically, they referred to traditional enterprise computing methods as overly complex, convoluted, and costly. Indeed, many even gave this criticism a name: "enterprisey."

Now, Google App Engine can replicate data across multiple data centers, and thus work around availability issues in the case of maintenance and outages that affect a single instance. This offering is a result of businesses demanding such features before they move to the public cloud…

Grazed from CIOL.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

‘Big data’ analytics, security and cloud computing will be three of the most significant drivers of technological change in 2012, according to Ovum.

The predictions for the coming year also include the growing impact of social networking platforms on enterprise collaboration strategies, convergence of selected software-as-a-service (SaaS) CRM and marketing services, and the consumerisation of IT, which looks likely to accelerate the adoption of self-selected SaaS by line-of-business owners and the deployment of mobile device management solutions to support bring-your-own-device strategies.

The independent technology analyst also expects the role of chief information officer (CIO) to continue evolving next year as it faces strong pressure to develop operational and investment models that embrace technology-led innovation from all functional units within the organisation…

Grazed from GottaBe Mobile.  Author:  Chuong Nguyen.

Beyond smartphones, mobile giants Apple and Google are working on wearable computing devices that would serve as a proxy and allow its wearers to interact with either their smartphones or with the cloud. Apple had already begun testing the waters for wearable computing technology with the iPod Nano released last year where the Cupertino, California company gave third-party accessories makers ideas for creating wrist straps so that consumers can wear the diminutive portable music player on their wrists. Google, on the other hand, is still developing concepts for its wearable computing technology.

News of Google’s foray into the wearable computing market comes by way of The New York Times, which is reporting that the Android-maker has been testing prototypes and concepts in its Google X Labs. The company also had in recent years recruited wearable computing experts from top research universities, Nokia Labs, and Apple to help it with development…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author:  Carl Eberling.

Here’s a look at ahead at what 2012 holds for cloud computing and the IT sector.

• Google and Microsoft will strongly challenge Apple‘s lead in the IT mobile market.

When deciding which platforms to support, IT administrators are challenged with balancing market share and capabilities against long-term potential. They will have to manage the devices that are chosen by the majority of their end users. While Apple iOS is currently in the IT leadership position, Google Android’s high ranking is likely a reflection of where the market will head as its sales increase and capabilities improve. Likewise, Microsoft remains a strong contender with Windows 7 (and upcoming Windows 8).

While Google and Microsoft certainly are going to battle with Apple for its lead, the reality is that IT doesn’t want to support any of them. The device of choice for IT is the one on which nobody calls them for help, so the best of these platforms will be self-service enabled. When we look back in another five years, the greatest achievement here might be the fact that IT is not nearly as involved in mobile platforms as they have been on desktops. Many people assume the paradigm tomorrow will be the same as today; but, I believe it’s going to be different…

Grazed from CNet.   Author:   Jason Parker and Jaymar Cabebe.

While software may not be the glitziest of categories on display at CES, there’s still plenty to be excited about as we prep for the 2012 event. From artificial intelligence to home integration, apps are definitely on the rise. Also, expect the cloud and health care to emerge as topics yet again.

Forecast: Cloudy
Though this was on many prediction lists last year, we expect cloud computing to really hit its stride beginning with announcements at 2012’s Consumer Electronics Show. Now that Apple’s iCloud and other services have found creative (and successful) ways to store data in the cloud, expect to see more companies getting in on the action. As more data gets spread out to all your devices, the industry moves ever closer to the long-predicted marriage of television and Internet. Having every type of content on demand is even closer than you might think…

 

Grazed from NextGov.  Author: Bob Brewin.

Congress has thrown a roadblock into the Defense Department’s plans to consolidate many of its data centers into facilities operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency or the military services.

In the fiscal 2012 Defense Authorization Act passed last week, lawmakers directed Defense Chief Information Officer Teri Takai to develop a plan to use commercial cloud computing services instead of DISA’s. Language tucked into the military construction section of the act asked Takai to submit a plan by April 1, 2012, for "migration of Defense data and government-provided services from department owned and operated data centers to cloud computing services generally available within the private sector."

The Pentagon in November announced it had adopted a "DISA first" strategy for data center consolidation, which it expects to generate $680 million a year in savings starting in 2015. Defense shuttered 55 data centers at the end of September — three more than planned — and the Army expects to close 185 data centers by 2014…

Grazed from National Mortgage Professional Magazine.  Author:  Editorial Staff.

Automated underwriting and loan pricing technology provider PriceMyLoan has released LendingQB, a 100 percent Web-based mortgage lending platform. "With LendingQB, we believe we are doing more than just providing a ‘cloud computing’ loan origination system,” said Binh Dang, LendingQB’s managing partner."We believe we are fundamentally changing the way that lenders use technology."

Since 2004, PriceMyLoan has been providing lenders with advanced technology to automate the underwriting and pricing of their loans. Over the past seven years, PriceMyLoan has had the unique opportunity to work closely with their clients and carefully observe their utilization of technology…