December 9, 2011 Off

What’s the difference between Cloud Computing & Grid Computing?

By David
Grazed from TopHosts.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud computing and Grid computing are two different realms of managing IT related work activities in the smoothest way possible.

Where cloud computing is a branch of Information technology that invites businesses to become virtual, grid computing on the other hand calls for a shared environment on a common computer system from multiple administrative domains. Although, both of them function with a purpose to provide a good percentage of scalability levels to high-end computer networks, the cost of deploying these is equally high…

December 9, 2011 Off

Beware Cloud Computing Advice from IT Research Firms

By David
Grazed from CIO.  Author: Bernard Golden.

I don’t know how I missed this, but at the Gartner IT Symposium in October, Darryl Plummer (Chief of Gartner Cloud Research) apparently stated that enterprises should deploy applications in a public cloud provider as a default, and only deploy them in a private cloud if the public alternative is not appropriate.

I became aware of Plummer’s recommendation, which caused quite a stir in the blog world when he first announced it, via Twitter earlier this week.

Naturally, much of the furor over Plummmer’s pronouncement was a reaction to the quick summary: Gartner prefers public cloud. Wow. That’s a big deal, right? Gartner is probably telling all of its clients that they should trim their private cloud plans and instead focus on public cloud service providers. And, in response, all of its clients are scrapping their private cloud initiatives and planning a big move to public providers, right?…

December 9, 2011 Off

Cloud Computing a Top IT Investment Priority: Report

By David
Grazed from eWeek.  Author:  Nathan Eddy.

As businesses get ready to capitalize on emerging technology trends in 2012, cloud computing remains at the top of many companies’ lists: Fifty percent of respondents to a recent Unisys (NYSE: UIS) online poll said cloud computing is their top IT investment priority for 2012. This is the second straight year respondents to a Unisys poll named cloud as the chief priority for IT investments in the coming year.

In a similar poll conducted in December 2010 and January 2011, 44 percent of 262 respondents said cloud computing topped their IT priority list for 2011. The more recent poll, which drew 300 responses, was conducted on the company’s Website in September and October 2011. Other respondents to the poll listed cyber-security (21 percent), mobile/social computing (21 percent) and big data (8 percent) as their top 2012 IT priorities…

December 9, 2011 Off

4 Cost-Cutting Cloud Strategies for Campus IT

By David

Grazed from Campus Technology.  Author:  Bridget Mcrea.
 

When Reed A. Sheard joined Westmont College as the institution’s first chief information officer, he was immediately tasked with turning around an IT department that–while talented and well intentioned–just wasn’t "getting the job done" when it came to advancing technology on campus. That was in 2008, the same year that phrases like "economic recession" and "budget cutbacks" were starting to become more common on college campuses.

"When the economic implosion occurred, nearly all schools went through budget adjustments," recalled Sheard, who is also vice president for college advancement for the Santa Barbara, CA, private college. He quickly found himself caught in the crossfire and attempting to improve Westmont College’s technology infrastructure on a lighter budget…

December 8, 2011 Off

Telsist Data Center Introduces VideoCells’ WebVR, Cloud Based Video Surveillance to North America

By David
Grazed from MarketWatch.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud computing continues to transform the way business is done. Through the power of the cloud and Telsist Communications the $10 billion and growing video surveillance industry is experiencing this transformation with video surveillance as a service (VSaaS). VSaaS is an IT solution routed through the cloud for greater efficiencies with more features and flexibility. This solution radically alters the landscape of the on-site DVR/NVR and analog camera dominated video surveillance market.

Telsist Communications is a cloud ready data center located in Montreal, Canada whose focus is to deliver comprehensive managed IT services. Partnered with VideoCells of Israel, Telsist is equipped to offer cloud-based managed video surveillance to its growing list of professional managed IT services. This VSaaS solution eliminates the need for on-site DVR/NVR as the video is transferred, hosted and stored at Telsist…

December 8, 2011 Off

HP, Microsoft Forge Four-Year Cloud Pact

By David
Grazed from CRN.  Author: Andrew R. Hickey.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) Enterprise Services and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) have joined forces to offer global public and private cloud services, a four-year deal that will offer packaged bundles of HP and Microsoft gear and through which HP will resell Microsoft Office 365.

The two tech titans said Thursday that the goal of the pact is to bring customers into the cloud and help them make the shift from capital IT expenses to operational expenses.

For private cloud deployments, HP will offer Microsoft cloud productivity applications like Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010 as a service from HP data centers as part of its HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Messaging, HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Collaboration and HP Enterprise Cloud Services-Real-Time Collaboration.

For public cloud, Microsoft will offer Microsoft Office 365 and other collaboration and productivity tools…

December 8, 2011 Off

White House launches cloud computing security standards

By David

Grazed from Washington Business Journal.  Author: Jill R. Aitoro.
 

After two years of development, the Office of Management and Budget officially launched a program Thursday that establishes uniform security requirements that contractors will have to meet to sell their cloud solutions to the federal government.

Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel sent a memo to all agency CIOs requiring that they use the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program when purchasing cloud services. FedRAMP, as it’s known, establishes a set of approved, minimum security controls that cloud services will have to meet, as well as an assessment process for authorizing these services under the program…

December 8, 2011 Off

IBM Buys DemandTec for Its Cloud-ified Analytics

By David
Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Maureen O’Gara.

IBM said Thursday morning that it was buying DemandTec for $13.20 a share, close to 57% premium.

Big Blue will ante up roughly $440 million, net of DemandTec’s cash on hand, to take over the cloud-based ISV for its 10-month-old Smarter Commerce initiative. IBM estimates the market opportunity for Smarter Commerce at $20 billion in software alone.

By running different customer buying scenarios, DemandTec’s subscription-based price, promotion, merchandising and marketing analytics are supposed to help users define their best price points and product mix based on customer buying trends both online and in stores…

December 8, 2011 Off

Mobile Devices Now Driving Cloud-Computing Adoption

By David
Grazed from InfoBoom.  Author: Shawn Drew.

Technology giant CSC just released its latest Cloud Usage Index, a survey that looks at the current state of cloud computing. Not only divulging simply interesting facts, the survey found that cloud adoption is being hastened by the desire to access information through multiple devices, marking a clear shift from results of earlier cloud-adoption surveys.

Cloud Usage Index

The survey was performed by independent research firm TNS using funding from CSC and asked 3,645 IT decision makers from companies around the world about their current and upcoming cloud-computing situation. The survey results are now available as either a write-up or infographic, at the CSC website…

December 8, 2011 Off

How capacity management changes in the cloud

By David
Grazed from InfoWorld.  Author: David Linthicum.

Capacity management is all about creating a plan assuring the business there will be just enough volume (servers, storage, network, and so on) for critical applications and data when needed. This means creating complex performance and power models to make sure you’re neither spending too much nor too little money on IT infrastructure.

But what changes for capacity management in the emerging world of cloud computing? A few things come to mind…