Grazed from CiteWorld. Author: Simon Bisson.

At every speech he’s made so far, Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella has talked about his vision of the future of computing. Having a vision is good for Microsoft, a company that seemed lost, struggling to find relevance in a world dominated by the new giants of Silicon Valley. Now the sleeping giant has awoken, first with Office on the iPad, then with new versions of Windows, then with Cortana, Surface 3, and on and on, five months of announcement after announcement.

Much of what Microsoft has delivered was born under Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer, but much of it has come from the groups touched by Nadella’s career, from Bing to Azure, to Office 365 and beyond. Much of it has also come from Microsoft’s secret sauce, the scientists and engineers of Microsoft Research…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

kloudtrack®, a leader in cybersecurity and cloud computing (cyber|cloud) technologies and solution services for sensitive data, process management and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC), will team up with the University of Maryland’sRobert H. Smith School of Business and Cisco Systems CSCO -0.04% to establish the first Innovation Sandbox™ exchange catering to the innovation, workforce development and technology roadmapping needs of public and private sector healthcare, and medical and life science (HealthTech) organizations.

The project was announced as part of today’s Maryland Economic Development Association Summer Conference at UMD, themed "Health Innovations: Impact on Economic and Workforce Development." The HealthTech Innovation Sandbox, which will be available via both physical and virtual data hosting platforms, is being developed jointly by kloudtrack and Cisco in partnership with the Center for Health Information and Decision Systems (CHIDS) — a research center at the Smith School. The project will allow healthcare, medical and life science organizations to test, research, teach and learn various innovative technologies and/or methodologies in a proof-of-concept "sandbox" environment…

Grazed from RapidScale. Author: Editorial Staff.

When it comes to business, cloud computing is on everyone’s mind. This next generation of computing technology is proving to be extremely beneficial for organizations of every size. With this increased consideration of the cloud, many are deciding how to best integrate it into their business. There are three main forms of cloud computing: public, private and hybrid. When considering the move, you shouldn’t just pick one of these at random. The choice should be strategic, based on the characteristics of your business. Each cloud model is best suited for certain types of organizations and needs, so picking the wrong one could backfire. It’s important to consider security, compliance, cost, efficiency, integration and scalability.

Multi-Tenant (Public)

A public cloud is based on the popular definition of cloud computing – it provides services, applications and computing resources off-site via the Internet. Multitenancy is a huge part of the public cloud, as the resources used are shared by multiple organizations. This leads to greater efficiency, amazing scalability and lower costs, all of which are huge draws of public cloud computing. Businesses typically use a pay-as-you-go model, truly purchasing the cloud “as a service,” similar to how electricity or water services work…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Paul Miller.

For most businesses, the debate about whether to embrace the cloud is over. It is now a question of tactics — how, when, and what kind? Cloud computing increasingly forms an integral part of enterprise IT strategy, but the wide variation in enterprise requirements ensures plenty of scope for very different cloud services to coexist.

Today’s enterprise cloud deployments will typically be hybridized, with applications and workloads running in a mix of different cloud environments. The rationale for those deployment decisions is based on a number of different considerations, including geography, certification, service level agreements, price, and performance…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Nicholas Rando.

With cloud compliance and standards regulations changing as often as the weather, how do cloud admins keep up? Unfortunately, there is no one answer — but there are a number of different ways to attack it. When users work together with their cloud computing service providers, staying on top of cloud regulations becomes easier.

From keeping up-to-date on the latest regulations, such as PCI DSS and HIPAA, to ensuring that all of your cloud service requirements are being met, collaboration between cloud providers and consumers is the key. But what else do cloud admins need to know to meet cloud regulations? With that question in mind, we’ve compiled our top five tips on cloud computing compliance and standards with the hope of shedding light on these vital pieces of the cloud puzzle…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Aatif Sulleyman.

Over half of Europe- and US-based cloud users are "reliant" on the technology, according to new research. Research firm Frost and Sullivan recently surveyed 1,028 IT decision-makers for its "Future of Cloud Computing Technologies in Enterprises in the United States and Europe" report, and some of the results were rather interesting.

57 per cent of participants who make use of the cloud described themselves as "cloud reliant", while the remaining 43 per cent were pretty negative about the technology. The report also found that the majority of respondents have already migrated over half of their businesses’ communications systems to the cloud. Frost and Sullivan expects a quarter to move over 75 per cent of these to the cloud within the next three years…

Grazed from EconomicTimes. Author: David Gelles.

Box, the Silicon Valley, cloud storage company run by 29-year-old Aaron Levie, was on the cusp of going public earlier this year. Until it wasn’t. In March, Box filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicating it would try to raise up to $250 million in an initial public offering. A recent financing round had valued the company at $2 billion. The stock markets were soaring.

Then the shares of several big technology companies faltered. The Nasdaq composite index dipped 7 percent in a matter of weeks. Box’s IPO didn’t happen. The company has yet to file an amended prospectus. To some, Box’s postponed IPO was simply a sign of a weakened appetite for technology stocks…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Christine Donato.

If you read my blog last week, Cracking the Cloud Conceptions, wait no longer. As promised, I interviewed each SAP customer I met at SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando and asked the following: What do you think about the cloud? I asked if their company ran business in the cloud, the benefits of the cloud, and their general opinion of cloud computing overall.

Cloud computing is a concept that everyone is speaking, breathing, and hearing over and over again, but do we really understand what it means? As SAP moves towards its mission of simplifying everything to do anything, the cloud is going to play a major role in the success of SAP customers…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Hamish Barwick.

Public cloud may be able deliver greater agility to enterprises, but it can also complicate the already fraught information security landscape. And according to a Ponemon Institute report issued this month, cloud may mean that when security breaches do happen, the cost could be significantly higher.

However, the cloud needn’t to be a criminal’s paradise if IT managers draw up a contingency plan before placing data into a cloud environment and use a multilayered approach to security. Speaking last month at the Gartner IT Infrastructure Operations and Data Centre Summit in Sydney, the analyst firm’s research director, Michael Warrilow, told delegates that they are not going to get a “perfect risk assessment” when looking at cloud computing…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: David Linthicum.

Those charged with calculating the true value of cloud computing often refer to the old CapEx versus OpEx model. If we adopt public cloud and avoid purchasing hardware and software, that will save use money, right? It’s not that simple. So, what’s an IT leader to do to establish cloud value for your organization? There are no rules or solid models that you should use every time. As always, it’s a matter of understanding your business and the impact that any new technology can have upon it. Cloud computing is no different.

The old way of defining the value of cloud computing through cost efficiencies and the ability to avoid capital expenses is falling out of favor. The reasoning becomes more apparent as we gather data points about the value of a public cloud computing model. Our old way of defining cloud value gives no consideration to several key issues:..