Grazed from Brandeis.edu. Author: Nagendra Nyamgondalu.

It was only a few years back that most IT managers I spoke to would smirk when they heard the term “cloud” in a conversation. They either didn’t believe that cloud cloud-iaas computing would be viable for their businesses’ IT needs or were skeptical about the maturity of the technology. And rightly so. But, a lot has changed since then. The technology, tools and services available for businesses considering adoption of a public cloud, setting up their own private cloud or treading the middle path of a hybrid one, has made rapid strides. Now, the same IT managers are very focused on deploying workloads and applications on the cloud for cost reduction and improved efficiency.

Businesses today have the choice of consuming Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS). As you can imagine, these models map directly to the building blocks of a typical data center. Servers, storage and networks form the infrastructure on top of which, the required platforms are built such as databases, application servers or web servers and tools for design and development…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

EnterpriseDB (EDB), the leading worldwide provider of enterprise-class Postgres products and Oracle database compatibility solutions, today announced support for Postgres Plus Advanced Server on the OpenStack platform. Support for EDB’s flagship database on OpenStack dramatically expands the options for companies seeking a low-cost, enterprise-class relational database for cloud computing within a private cloud or on a hosted environment.

Postgres Plus Advanced Server for OpenStack represents a portable and powerful relational database that can support 80 percent of the workloads most organizations run to support their operations. "OpenStack has emerged as the de facto standard for companies running private clouds or tapping into public cloud environments and our customers want the option of using Postgres on this platform," said Ed Boyajian, CEO of EnterpriseDB.

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Johnson Controls, a global multi-industrial company, is now Cisco’s preferred provider to construct, cool and monitor its data centers, as companies rely more on cloud computing to support their business operations in today’s increasingly mobile, connected world. "The Internet of Everything era is pushing businesses to use, compute and store data in ways that touch each of us every day.

Employee information, retirement accounts and even your cell phone records are most likely hosted in a cloud," said Dave Myers, president, Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls. "Our relationship with Cisco makes sure that those clouds are supported by reliable and secure data centers that are designed to meet today’s needs and easily adapt for the future."…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

SoftServe, Inc., a leading global outsourced product and application development company, today announced Vasyl Mylko, Director of Research and Development, will present a perspective on the "Internet of Everything" at theCloud Computing Expo 2014to be held on June 10-12, 2014, in New York, NY. The event promises to bring together infrastructure players, platform providers, and application creators.

"SoftServe is known for transforming business models and works with all the main players in the cloud ecosystem," said Alan Harlan, CEO of SoftServe. "We are pleased to be part of this industry event to share our perspective on the technological acceleration of business and life. With breakthroughs in global broadband connectivity we find businesses are making a shift to client-cloud architectures which extend big data to all data, and require high-performance cloud computing."…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Jon Collins.

While cloud computing has seen widespread adoption, many organizations still see cloud-based services as something to be kept at arms length rather than as an integral part of an organization’s extended IT architecture. This not only results in missed opportunities but also means that applications and services are architected without taking the wider area network into account.

Aimed at heads of infrastructure in enterprise organizations, this paper considers how organizations can benefit from aspects of technology that lie beyond the corporate boundary — that is, the cloud — without being hampered by sometimes-artificial technological, organizational, and financial constraints…

Read more from the source @ http://research.gigaom.com/report/architecting-your-organization-for-the-cloud/

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Today at the Cloud Computing Expo Japan, PROMISE Technology Inc., a recognized global leader in the storage industry, announced the Japanese launch of its new cloud storage solution: FileCruiser. The new FileCruiser enables businesses and organizations to create their own scalable private cloud storage service.

An exclusive FileCruiser launch event will be hosted by James Lee, CEO of PROMISE Technology, on May 14 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. during the Expo at the Tokyo Big Sight seminar area. Additionally, attendees can learn more about FileCruiser and PROMISE’s full range of cloud and IT storage solutions by visiting booth #East 2-23 at the Tokyo Big Sight during the Expo…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Larry Warnock.

Cloud computing, big data, and the hybridization of IT environments represent real, seismic shifts in the way organizations leverage technology to provide better customer service, more effectively solve problems, and gain a competitive advantage. But as adoption of these technologies grows, so too does the amount of sensitive data and variety of information objects that require tight management and security.

As companies put more of their IT infrastructures, critical applications, and valuable company data into the cloud, they should be using security measures, such as encryption, tokenization, authorization, and access controls to protect these valuable business assets. These security procedures create an abundance of encryption keys, tokens, certificates, passphrases, and configuration files…

Graxed from Technet. Author: Adrienne Hall.

Previously in this series, we looked at cloud security trends in the financial services and healthcare sectors, based on survey data derived from Microsoft’s Cloud Security Readiness Tool (CSRT). Next I’d like to discuss some findings that relate to the retail industry. IT departments at retail businesses are expected to manage a number of important security tasks, some of which have evolved considerably in recent years.

This includes meeting regulatory requirements, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) specifications on protecting customer data, without diminishing the shopping experience in stores or online. Retailers have also expanded their use of technology to manage supply chains, operate web services and self-service portals, and deploy customer relationship management (CRM) solutions that can address their customers’ needs…

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Violin Memory, Inc., a leading provider of all-flash storage arrays and appliances delivering application solutions for the enterprise, today announced it has joined the OpenStack ® Foundation as a corporate member to collaborate with other industry leaders and promote open standards for cloud computing.

As a new OpenStack Foundation corporate member, Violin offers its all flash storage arrays with an iSCSI plug-in option for customers running business applications on the OpenStack platform. Currently in beta is a Fibre Channel plug-in supporting OpenStack that will be available in the second quarter of the calendar year…

Grazed from ReadWrite. Author: Anthony Myers.

Salesforce finally connected the powerful Heroku cloud application platform to its own database layer on Tuesday with the release of the Heroku Connect tool. The move was promised last year when the company debuted its Salesforce1 mobile app, which was designed as a mobile one-stop shop for all of Salesforce’s various business application tools.

Heroku and Force.com, the cloud computing platform as a service (PaaS) from Salesforce.com, represent two vastly different development systems based on completely different programming languages—but Salesforce now has a working bi-directional connection between them, in the form of the Heroku Connect Tool…