Grazed from ARNews.  Author: Editorial Staff.

Mobily, a major enterprise-class cloud solution provider, announced that it is now an SAP-certified provider of hosting services for SAP Cloud technology.
This is in line with its strategy to become an ICT key player, Mobily stated, adding that it is among the first SAP partners in the GCC to achieve this certification from SAP AG.

This certification recognizes Mobily ability to deliver services for SAP Cloud with high-quality operation standards.  The company delivers cloud hosting services across the entire life cycle of the SAP Business Suite applications — test, development, quality assurance, staging and production by utilizing Virtustream xStream cloud management software and its µVM technology, which enables application-level SLAs to guarantee performance and availability of critical SAP Business Suite applications running on the platform….

Grazed from ArsTechnica.  Author: Sean Gallagher.

When Microsoft unveiled its Cortana “digital personal assistant” technology this week, some dismissed it as a far-too-late answer to Apple’s Siri and Google Now. But aside from a female voice and some functional overlap, Cortana is not strictly an answer to either of those voice-based tools—it is an answer to broader questions about how to wield the power of cloud computing services in a personal, non-intrusive way.

Cortana is just the first big pay-off from Microsoft’s continuing investment in the Bing platform as well as a host of big-data technologies that could have wide-ranging impact on how people interact with information, applications, and the world around them…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Dave Thier.

In what could be construed as a response to some of the framerate and resolution differences between the Xbox One and the PS4, Microsoft MSFT -2.76% took the stage at the San Francisco Build Conference to demonstrate how cloud computing technology can enhance video game graphics. This is the sort of thing that Microsoft has been talking about since the Xbox One reveal, but we’ve yet to get much of an idea of how it will work when the rubber hits the road.

The video is a demonstration of two high-end gaming machines, one of which is connected to Azure’s cloud server, one of which isn’t. When the Microsoft presenter starts loading the scenario up with some complex physics, the unconnected machine struggles to maintain framerate while the connected one clips along at 32 fps. It should be noted that this is not Xbox One footage, but rather a PC prototype. The recording is courtesy of Arekkz Gaming…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2014/04/04/microsoft-shows-off-power-of-the-cloud-for-xbox-one/

Grazed from SysCon Media.  Author: Gilad Parann-Nissany.

The combination of cloud computing and big data is a match made in heaven. Big data requires a flexible compute environment, which can scale quickly and automatically to support massive amounts of data. Infrastructure clouds provide exactly that. But whenever cloud computing is discussed, the question comes up:

What about cloud security for big data?

When it comes to cloud security in a big data use case, the expectation is that any security solution will provide the same flexibility as the cloud without compromising the overall security of the implementation. When taking your big data to the cloud, the following four tips will enable you to achieve cloud flexibility paired with strict cloud security…

Grazed from CloudTech.  Author: James Bourne.

Cloud services provider Interoute has announced the launch of a new virtual data centre (VDC) in Hong Kong, joining other vendors in setting up shop in the lucrative Asian region.   The company also announced that its customers can move data and apps across the entire services platform, across VDC zones, for no cost.

Lee Myall, the general manager of Interoute’s enterprise app store CloudStore, told CloudTech that while European expansion was still key, this was big news for Interoute on a global scale…

Grazed from PrivateWifi.  Author: Jared Howe

Cloud computing is used by virtually every organization because it’s a convenient way to use applications and share data in a web-based environment.  But there are also risks to consider. IT firm SoftChoice Cloud has published the findings of an interesting survey that highlighted how employees who use these applications are exposing their organizations to security breaches and data losses at a much higher rate than non-cloud users.

The cloud, as it’s known colloquially, is also referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service) and it has grown exponentially over the last decade. As part of this survey, SoftChoice interviewed 1,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada and found that employees who use SaaS apps for work have developed bad habits and risky behaviors that may compromise the security of their organizations…

Read more from the source @ http://www.privatewifi.com/what-you-dont-know-about-cloud-computing-could-be-hurting-your-company/

Grazed from BusinessInsider.  Author: Julie Bort.

All of the industry’s biggest tech players are going gaga chasing the cloud-computing market these days:

•     Cisco just vowed to spend $1 billion to build a new cloud to compete with Amazon’s Web Services.
• Microsoft spent about $8 billion on cloud computing R&D in 2011 and spends billions more each year on its cloud data centers in 16 regions around the world.
• IBM is spending $7 billion to beef up its cloud.
• Oracle is in the process of building a cloud, too, with parts of it already being used by beta testers, CEO Larry Ellison recently said…

Grazed from MSPMentor.  Author: Michael Brown.

Return on investment (ROI) has been a common performance measurement tool for companies for decades.  However, now it’s come to the attention of numerous companies that perhaps a new variation of ROI will be needed to accompany the arrival of cloud computing.   From this piece over at Forbes:  “A new survey of 350 senior IT executives finds 16 percent see measuring ROI as a hurdle to their cloud computing implementations”

Traditional ROI is based upon the hard monetary return on the purchase and use of products or services.  However, the long term gains from the cloud are not always so easily calculated in a purely financial way…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Dan Kobialka.

Researchers claimed earlier this week that they found 30 security flaws in Oracle’s cloud services. Security Explorations, a Polish security and vulnerability research company, published details about security defects it reportedly discovered in Oracle’s Java Cloud Service. In addition, Security Explorations released an attack code that it said would allow hackers to remotely attack apps hosted in Oracle’s US and EMEA data centers.

Security Explorations details its findings in two reports that are available for download here. A Security Explorations security issue disclosure timeline showed that Oracle was notified about 28 security issues on January 31, and another two issues on February 2. Adam Gowdiak, the CEO and founder of Security Explorations, told PCWorld that he decided to publish his company’s findings because Oracle did not immediately respond to the security issues…

Grazed from The Var Guy. Author: Michael Cusanelli.

EMC (EMC) has announced several new products and technologies to add to its data protection and cloud computing portfolio, designed to aid IT companies in protecting their infrastructures while adding support for cloud environments and data protection as a service delivery. Chief among these releases are the company’s Data Protection Suite, Data Domain Operating System and VPLEX and RecoverPoint products. All three focus on storage protection for enterprise users and utilize EMC’s latest in data protection and disaster recovery.

“Over the past few years we’ve delivered numerous integrations that, together with a workload-agnostic protection storage platform as an anchor, provide a protection storage architecture. Today, we are announcing products and new integrations that enable customers to deliver a complete spectrum of data protection and availability capabilities as a holistic, consumable service,” said Guy Churchward, president, EMC Data Protection and Availability Division, in a prepared statement…