Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Keith Dawson.

Companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook don’t just innovate with products: Just look at their data centers. The designs and operations playbooks of these new centers aim to lower costs, increase reliability and maintainability, and improve agility, while reducing energy use and carbon footprint.

As big data and cloud computing push the limits of traditional data centers, new trends in data center innovation have followed. Google started the ball rolling when it scaled up its search operations starting in the late 1990s. By 2001, Google, still three years away from its IPO, was building its own servers from piece-parts, seeking not only economy but also reliability and ease of maintenance. Prior to 2003, Google was investigating putting large numbers of servers in a shipping container. That year it applied for a patent on the idea of the modular, drop-in-place data center…

Grazec from InformationAge. Author: Ben Rossi.

The beauty of the cloud is that it seeks to enable a business to become more agile, efficient and competitive, yet compliance seeks to restrain it. And this is what is preventing some businesses from making the most of the cloud. Recent research from NTT Com Security revealed businesses across the globe are wary of the using the cloud. A worrying 86% admitted that issues around data protection, legislation and regulation are responsible for cloud computing being adopted more slowly than they would like.

You only have to look at the publicity surrounding the NSA and PRISM revelations and compliance, data sovereignty laws and regulation requirements from authorities like the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). With these increasingly complicated data laws, it’s becoming something of a minefield for businesses looking to embrace, or experiment with, the cloud…

Grazed from inCloud360.com. Author: Editorial Staff.

Have you been considering a move to the cloud, but are not sure where to begin? If you haven’t read, cloud computing is both the present and the future of technological innovation for businesses of all sizes. Certain benefits of cloud computing include the following:

• The opportunity to easily and quickly acquire enterprise class IT services
• Minimized up-front and on-going operational investments
• Flexibility and agility allowing companies to better meet current and changing business needs

Cloud computing offers greater choices and benefits, but can be difficult to understand for the layperson. Therefore, greater communication is needed in order to properly implement and capitalize on cloud benefits, as well as ensure the user understands what he or she is actually buying…

Grazed from MidsizeInsider. Author: Marissa Tejada.

Cloud computing is expanding at an impressive rate among small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Certain attributes of the technology, which include communication and collaboration as well as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), have proved to be the most appealing for SMBs, according to the latest Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ report.

Communication and Collaboration

According to the report’s findings, which were featured in ChannelPro Network, the small and midsize cloud market is predicted to grow at a 26 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), reaching $125 billion by 2016. The report included the opinions of midsize companies with 100 to 999 employees. The findings ranked communication and collaboration, comprising business-class email and hosted private breach exchange (PBX) services, as the top growth drivers…

Grazed from GCN. Author: John Moore.

Security best practices traditionally call for encrypting data in transit, as it moves from one storage locale to another, and data at rest, when it resides in an organization’s storage systems. The advent of cloud computing, however, has created the need for yet another stage of security: data “in-use,” as when a third-party cloud provider maintains it.

The Cloud Security Alliance recommends securing data when it exists in this in-use state. In its 2012 implementation guidance, CSA recommended “controls should be applied throughout the entire lifecycle (in transit, at rest and in use) to allow the customer to maintain control over the data while the [cloud service provider] hosts and processes it.” Securing data in use, however, presents encryption challenges. For one thing, data typically needs to be decrypted in order for users or work with it…

Grazed from SysCon Media. Author: Brad Vaughan.

It is still very difficult for a traditional enterprise to find a path from current infrastructure deployment models to a pure cloud architecture. I have discussed many times before that a very tangible "Trigger Event" needs to be identified that will get the gears in motion. The recipe for this change, often needs a second ingredient which is readily accessible technology that allows IT to create solutions with minimal upfront investment (i.e ShadowIT).

This "Trigger Event" cannot be described in abstract terms like "ROI" or "TCO" and definiely not business strategy terms like "agility" or "time-2-market". These are all good labels to frame the beginning of the discussion at executive levels, but where the rubber meets the road is real applications providing real intelligence or new services. The problem is most enterprises have a large legacy environment of applications…

Grazed from SysCon Media. Author: Pat Romanski.

Cloud environments have created situations that allow users, customers, consumers, and employees to access Public, Intranet, and Extranet applications from different locations, devices, and as different personas. The focus of all the Internet and enterprise front-end applications today is to enhance the user experience. In addition, with advances in mobility and BYOD, the line between public and private becomes a deep shade of gray.

At the same time, organizations are leveraging SaaS applications, such as Google Apps and DropBox, for their internal business communication and collaboration. This opens up challenges in providing a universal identity for the user, while at the same time retaining the flexibility to segregate access depending on the scenario…

Grazed from Simplilearn. Author: PR Announcement.

Simplilearn (http://www.simplilearn.com), a leading provider of online training and professional certification courses, announces the launch of Big Data and Cloud certified training for IT professionals. Simplilearn will offer Big Data and Hadoop Live Virtual Classes (LVC) to give professionals the opportunity to interact with world-class Big Data and Hadoop instructors and upgrade their skills. Simplilearn is also amongst the few players to have received accreditation for its E-Learning course on Comptia Cloud Essentials.

According to global research firm Gartner, by 2015, nearly 4.4 million new jobs in Big Data will be created globally but the supply of resources will meet less than half the demand. According to Krishna Kumar, Founder and CEO, Simplilearn, "Big Data and Cloud Computing are two of the most trending subjects in today’s technology world, creating huge career opportunities for IT professionals. Simplilearn is trying to bridge the demand and supply gap by offering high quality Big Data and Hadoop training for professionals. Our courses have specialized content created to enable professionals become the ‘go-to expert’ in their fields"…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

IBM wants your cloudy dollars – and it’s making an extremely aggressive play to be the market leader in enterprise cloud computing. In some minds, however, it already is. Exhibit A: chief executive Virginia Rometty, in an open letter to investors published as part of the company’s 2013 annual report, spelled it out: “IBM today is the leader in enterprise cloud.”

The reason? Investment. Big Blue has shelled out $7bn on 15 acquisitions, with Rometty singling out the purchase of IaaS provider SoftLayer above all else. The latest move was earlier in March, when the company announced it was to push $1bn of resources and investments into cloud, rolling out SoftLayer in new geographies and providing a developer-friendly PaaS offering called BlueMix…