Grazed from FCW. Author: Alistair Mitchell.

Three years ago Vivek Kundra unveiled the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy. The strategy set out to transform the government’s existing IT environment, which was "characterized by low asset utilization, a fragmented demand for resources, duplicative systems, environments which are difficult to manage and long procurement lead times." Cloud computing would be the change agent and transform federal IT for the better.

With Kundra estimating 25 percent of the government’s $80 billion annual IT spend could be migrated to cloud computing services, it would only be a matter of time before agencies could reap the rewards of the cloud’s key benefits: efficiency, agility and innovation. To accelerate cloud computing adoption, the cloud-first policy was instituted to ensure cloud services were evaluated prior to any new IT investments being made…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

IBM, HP, Cisco, and AT&T are the preferred infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers, topping the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, or Rackspace, according to a new IDC report on enterprise cloud computing. In a key finding, the report says, "buyers selected IBM as their overall top preference among providers they believe can most effectively provision IaaS, whether private or public. Following IBM in the top spots were Cisco, HP, AT&T, and Google."

The report, "U.S. Buyers Rank IBM, Cisco, HP, AT&T, and Google as Likely Most Effective Top 5 Providers in Delivering IaaS," is IDC’s first Public Cloud Tracker report. It was authored by IDC analyst David Tapper. Tapper defined infrastructure-as-a-service as either shared, multi-tenant servers in the cloud (public IaaS) or dedicated servers in the cloud (private IaaS)…

Grazed from NetworkWorld. Author: Brandon Butler.

Rackspace has received multiple inquiries about strategic investments or a potential sale to another company, the New York Times has reported. To help the company evaluate its options, it has hired banking giant Morgan Stanley. It’s got Cloud Chronicles thinking: Who would be in the market to buy Rackspace?

First some background on Rackspace: The company has its roots in managed hosting, but during the past half dozen years has broadened its focus to now cover cloud computing as well. Rackspace is synonymous with OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform after it started the initiative with NASA four years ago…

Grazed from The Var Guy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

Plenty of vendors are taking advantage of this week’s OpenStack Summit in Atlanta to showcase their open source cloud computing innovations. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has been one of the loudest, with a slew of announcements regarding OpenStack support on Ubuntu, Ubuntu OpenStack training and more.

The announcements came from Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and the former CEO of Canonical who has continued to play a leading role in the Ubuntu world despite having stepped down as CEO of the company in early 2010. During a keynote address at the OpenStack Summit, Shuttleworth discussed an array of developments that, in Canonical’s view, underscore Ubuntu’s competiveness in the open source cloud ecosystem:…

Grazed from DataCenterDynamics. Author: Hollie Luxford.

US-based cloud computing software manufacturer Stoneware – a subsidiary of Chinese computer technology company Lenovo – is planning to offer hosted application services that it will build on existing secure cloud and virtual desktop services, according to Techworld. Lenovo acquired Stoneware in 2012 to enhance and expand its cloud computing solutions.

Last year Lenovo opened its first public cloud service, Reach which it built around technology is gained from Stoneware. Stoneware’s WebNetwork virtual desktop currently offers a cloud desktop, with a browser-like interface and also provides secure and server-defined access to Web-based software such as Salesforce applications…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Microsoft is going cloud — or already has gone cloud, depending on whom you talk to. What’s not as well understood is how this shift will affect people who work with enterprise Microsoft systems. Will this mean a significant change to, or even elimination of, your job?  Unlike AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google, and IBM, Microsoft is relocating its core products, such as operating systems and databases, to the cloud.

AWS does not have existing on-premises systems, so AWS’s movement to the cloud is for new platforms. As with AWS, IBM offers a new cloud (via its SoftLayer acquisition) that doesn’t replicate its existing enterprise technology. The same can be said about Google’s cloud offering. So Microsoft is a unique case…

Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Jerin Mathew.

Reuters citing a source said the German company is planning to cut between 1,500 and 2,500 jobs. The company employs more than 66,500 people in more than 130 countries across the globe. The company on 14 May indicated that there would be target job cuts in the company, but it declined to say the exact number of redundancies.

"The number is not yet definite and there are still checks being made as to whether positions overlap or are unnecessary," the person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The source added that the cuts would affect all regions and areas. Nevertheless, SAP plans to create about 3,000 new jobs in 2014, leading to a net increase in the number of staff, according to the source…

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

Hosting and cloud computing are now mainstream with 45 percent of organisations beyond the pilot phase and 32 percent having a formal cloud computing plan as part of their overall IT and business strategy. Those are the conclusions of a global survey of more than 2,000 IT decision-makers undertaken by 451 Research.

The study also found, based on responses, that on-premises private cloud adoption accounted for 26 percent of on-premises infrastructure spending in 2013 and that hosted private cloud would experience the highest rate of growth for off-premises infrastructure, accounting for 32 percent of hosted spending in the next 24 months…

Grazed from RedCommerce. Author: Editorial Staff.

Market watchers predict cloud spending will increase five to seven times, outpacing overall tech spending in the next three years. But cloud adoption will no longer be driven solely by the promise of lower IT costs. Businesses will move to the cloud for different reasons than in the past, according to Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing Officer, SAP Cloud. Here are three more trends Minahan highlighted during a recent SAP Radio broadcast, “Game Changers 2014 Predictions Part 3”.
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1. Not everything moves to the cloud

As companies accelerate cloud adoption in 2014 and beyond, they aren’t getting rid of everything. Instead they will look to extend their existing technology investments. Deutsche Bank is a prime example. As keynoters of the upcoming Ariba Live event, Deutsche Bank will talk about how they extended the SAP environment with Ariba Cloud Apps and Ariba Networks to connect and collaborate with over 4,500 suppliers around the globe…

Grazed from CloudComputingPath. Author: Pravin Anchin.

During the ongoing TechEd event in Houston, Microsoft made a number of significant announcements, the least of which was not the addition of two new tools to Azure cloud computing. The new Azure ExpressRoute will permit private connections between on-premise environments and Azure. The second tool worthy of mention is the new simplified cloud storage service with a number of security improvements aimed at business segments.

ExpressRoute was scheduled for a preview on 12th. As regards other features, some are up for preview while others will debut later this summer. ExpressRoute meshes with SingTel, Telecity Group, AT&T, BT, Equinix, Zadara Storage and Verizon, offering speedy connects from Azure to that specific infrastructure a company may have up and running in-house or in a co-location data center…