Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Implementing cloud computing is a pragmatic decision that needs to be executed with painstaking attention to detail and a deep and broad understanding of an organization’s needs. The good news, according to Logicalis US, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (www.us.logicalis.com), is that it is possible to start the journey toward cloud computing one step at a time from wherever the organization is today, and even realize some efficiencies and performance rewards in the early stages.

It’s a challenging process that requires CIOs to clearly define where they are as well as where they want to be, but the payback is worth it: If it can be defined in enough detail, it can be done. To help, Logicalis has put together a four-point checklist that will help CIOs and IT managers set off with confidence on the road to cloud computing…

Grazed from DataCenterKnowledge. Author: Editorial Staff.

When large enterprises move to a public infrastructure cloud (such as Amazon Web Services or others), it is a gradual, and often times, carefully measured process. Large enterprises strive for 100 percent certainty that the migration process will not impact the business; therefore, they’ll usually start slowly, by migrating one application or process to the cloud.

This is where hybrid clouds kick in. Hybrid clouds offer (just as their name insinuates) a hybrid between on-premise and cloud infrastructure. But once even part of the business is in the cloud, the need arises for cloud security. As data is migrated away from the local “safe” data center, access to the information is no longer controlled by the enterprise, and different, cloud-oriented, security measures must be considered…

Grazed from V3.co.uk. Author: Madeline Bennett.

The global software market grew by five percent last year, highlighting businesses’ willingness to invest in newer technologies such as big data and the cloud while making savings on hardware investments. Overall, $407.3bn was spent on software last year, compared with $388.5bn in 2012. The top earner was Microsoft, which raked in a massive $65.7bn in software sales, compared with $62bn the previous year.

Despite the Redmond firm’s recent struggles to cement its place in the world of mobile and cloud, Microsoft’s results show just how strong a hold it still has on the software market, with its revenues more than double that of its closest competitor. The firm will no doubt be hoping the death of Windows XP will help raise this number further, as businesses finally start to migrate to newer Windows 7 or 8.1 systems…

Grazed from ThoughtsOnCloud. Author: Allan Tate.

Many of my clients are in the healthcare field, so a common question is if data can be managed on IBM cloud computing solutions in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The relevant part of this law, enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996, establishes rules for the storage and transmission of electronic health information. In summary, these rules are:

• Privacy Rule: regulates the use and disclosure of protected health information

• Security Rule: sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information

• Breach Notification Rule: requires that entities and business associates notify affected individuals (and others) following a breach of unsecured protected health information…

Grazed from CIOL. Author: Editorial Staff.

A new report by Tariff Consultancy Ltd (TCL) finds that public cloud computing pricing is becoming increasingly competitive, with price reductions averaging 10 per cent per annum, with private (dedicated) cloud services also seeing a decline in pricing – as new virtualized services with a high degree of automation are being made available even for the SME enterprise.

Cloud computing services are typically being offered on a per hour or a per GB basis for virtualized computing power, storage and bandwidth. Providers are offering services based on a simple hourly rate based on a per GB or per unit of computing power or per defined Computing Instance…

Grazed from SmartDataCollective. Author: Mike Solomonov.

Citrix has been in business since 1989 and today is the leader in virtual access technology for businesses. What began as a small tech company running in the red for six years has matured into a major enterprise through a series of smart acquisitions and continuous development of its products, and a little help from its friend, Microsoft.

With the popularity of Cloud Computing increasing daily, the newest Citrix software products, XenDesktop and XenApp, are increasingly used by companies to allow employees to run a broad range of programs on their mobile devices seamlessly, raising effectiveness and productivity. Huge companies like Deutsche Bank, Mutual of Omaha and Kindred Healthcare rely on XenApp to enable flexible computing by employees all over the country and around the world. Why is Citrix the go-to solution? Let’s take a look at the things that really matter to companies, and the ultimate end users…

Grazed from CradlePoint. Author: PR Announcement.

CradlePoint, www.cradlepoint.com, announced it has joined the CSA (Cloud Security Alliance). CSA is a not-for-profit organization to promote the use of best practices for security within cloud computing. CradlePoint’s participation within the alliance aligns its cloud-based management solution, Enterprise Cloud Manager, with an industry-accepted framework.

Cloud computing is changing the way organizations support distributed enterprises and improve operations. CradlePoint’s enterprise customers have turned to its Enterprise Cloud Manager to deploy, monitor, and manage their networks since the company delivered the first certified 4G/LTE networking solution. Focused on distributed enterprises, CradlePoint hired industry security veteran, Kent Woodruff as CSO, and adopted a number of industry standards that are a part of the CSA Cloud Control Matrix…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Todd R. Weiss.

Google is donating 50 million hours of cloud computing time to the U.S. government to assist in a recently announced Climate Data Initiative that aims to help organizations and communities use public data to look at climate conditions in their areas. "Up until now, it’s been difficult for the public to locate detailed, timely data relevant to climate-related risks such as extreme weather events," Tyler Erickson, developer advocate for the Google Earth Engine, wrote in a March 19 post on the Google Lat Long Blog.

"To help address this challenge, Google is donating cloud computing storage and access to other tools to support institutions that are driving climate change resilience." The efforts are being made as part of the Climate Data Initiative announced by the White House earlier this month, wrote Erickson. To help in those efforts, Google is providing 50 million hours of high-performance computing on the Google Earth Engine geospatial analysis platform, according to Erickson…

Grazed from TomsITPro. Author: Bill Olivier.

Hewlett Packard has announced a cloud managed software-defined network (SDN) that will improve mobile end user experience and help businesses simplify network management and possibly increase retail revenue, according to the company. The new solutions announced today at Interop 2014 in Las Vegas cover both wired and wireless networks.

The HP Cloud Managed Network Solution includes IEEE 802.11ac wireless access points (AP) and software-defined network applications. According to HP, it is a unified wired and wireless network solution that is combined with SDN. HP’s wireless AP models 560 and 517 are based on IEEE 802.11ac standards will provide end users up to three times faster speeds over 802.11n…

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Frederic Lardinois.

After Google’s drastic price cuts for its cloud computing services, Amazon quickly matched them. Given that Microsoft always promised to match prices, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the company today announced its own round of massive price cuts. Prices for compute on Microsoft Azure (previously known as Windows Azure) dropped by up to 35 percent and Microsoft cut storage prices by up to 65 percent. With these changes, Microsoft matches all of Amazon’s prices and sometimes undercuts them by 1 to 6 percent.

“We recognize that economics are a primary driver for some customers adopting cloud, and stand by our commitment to match prices and be best-in-class on price performance,” the company writes in its announcement today. Today’s announcement comes just a few days ahead of Microsoft’s big BUILD developer conference, but as Microsoft general manager for Azure Steven Martin writes today, “I’ve yet to meet a developer who travels just to hear about pricing updates, so you won’t see us take the stage at BUILD and use the opening moment to announce a price cut.”…