Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Google Enterprise named SADA Systems, global leaders in providing cloud computing solutions and IT consultancy, as the 2013 North America Partner of the Year for Google Apps for Government. The award was presented at the Google Enterprise Global Partner Summit in San Francisco, CA.

The award emphasizes SADA’s proven track record of enabling product adoption for customers on Google Apps for Government and acknowledges the consistent development and growth of its workforce, which includes 13 Google Apps certified specialists. SADA Systems was one of the first Google partners to engage in the program stipulated for Google Apps, first becoming a Google Apps Reseller five years ago in 2009, and earning its designation as a Google Apps Premier Enterprise Reseller in 2012…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Editorial Staff.

DigitalOcean is a fast-growing startup that provides cloud hosting services to small developers at a cheaper rate than major cloud computing providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Windows Azure. In August 2013, DigitalOcean raised $3.2 million. Already that $3.2 million investment has run dry and more employees and data centers are needed to keep up with growth.

They contracted the services of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz for another round of financing, this time bringing in $37 million. DigitalOcean was founded in June 2011; they created their millionth cloud server in January 2014. The company found success attracting smaller, independent developers to rent out their digital servers at rates as low as $0.007 an hour…

Grazed from Business2Community.  Author: Ginger Shimp.

By 2015, the Internet will connect 2.5 billion people and more than 15 billion devices. While those numbers are staggering, we have to ask: What do they mean?  Some prognosticators have opined that CDs and DVDs will be collectors’ items by 2020. They further believe that before the decade is over, 14% of people won’t own physical books and 11% won’t have a TV.  Why? Because of the Cloud.

The professional services industry is moving to the Cloud faster than any other. And for professional services firms the Cloud is not just about IT. It’s about driving rapid innovation throughout the enterprise. It’s about agility. It’s about enabling new business processes. We’ve entered an era where major technology decisions are made outside of the IT department…

Grazed from MSPMentor.  Author: Michael Brown.

Over the last few years, we’ve watched the cloud evolve from an imaginative idea, to a unknown reality, to an ongoing presence in everyday IT management and business solutions. The cloud has grown up right before our eyes.

But the growth isn’t stopping here. The cloud experts over at Forrester decided to take a closer look at the cloud’s projected growth over the next few years, and their vision is really quite remarkable. It’s also a vision that MSPs like yourself should keep in mind as you grow your business and offerings, so let’s take a look at a few predictions in particular:..

Grazed from Investors.com.  Author: Patrick Seitz.

The tectonic shift in the information technology industry caused by cloud computing is paving the way for a few years of "big-time disruption" among systems and infrastructure software companies, says Canaccord Genuity analyst Richard Davis.

That disruption will create long-term investment opportunities and likely will see the emergence of another company or two the size of Salesforce.com (CRM) and Workday (WDAY), he said in a 31-page report Monday. The report profiled 16 private companies that have implications for investors, including online data storage companies Box and Dropbox and Big Data firms Cloudera and Actian. These companies are potential IPO candidates or acquisition targets, he said…

Grazed from Sys Con Media.  Author: Paige Leidig.

Cloud computing brings a myriad of benefits for any enterprise, but it is also a cause for concern in a world where, according to InformationWeek, cyber criminals are now targeting "any company where they can find data to resell, disrupt or exploit."  Moving your company’s sensitive data into the hands of third-party cloud providers expands and complicates the risk landscape in which you operate every day.

In order to understand what concerns should be given emphasis in your cloud security strategy, you need to understand what you can’t afford to lose and what can protect you…

Grazed from NewYork Times.  Author: Quentin Hardy.

Computer scientists at Stanford have developed software that works like the recommendation engines for Amazon shoppers and Netflix movie subscribers, only for the distribution of workloads across large computing environments. The results, they say, can triple the efficiency of cloud-computing systems.

“Google, Microsoft, Twitter — everyone has a problem of underperforming servers,” said Christos Kozyrakis, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University, who led the creation of the management software, which is called Quasar. He has worked in a research capacity at Google and Microsoft, and he used some of Twitter’s resources in his research on Quasar…

Grazed from Verizon.  Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud and cybersecurity professionals Siki Giunta and Eddie Schwartz have joined Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ executive leadership team as the company focuses on providing enterprise cloud, managed security and machine-to-machine technology to its clients.  VES President John Stratton hired Giunta, who handled the global cloud business of CSC, to oversee the company’s global cloud ecosystem and prepare Verizon Cloud for market, Jeff Nelson wrote Thursday.

Schwartz, who was chief information security officer at RSA, joined VES in November and has headed the cyberforensics investigation and global consulting teams as well as formed the Verizon Cyber Intelligence Center.

Grazed from Yahoo. Author: Peter Apps and Jim Finkle.

A sophisticated piece of spyware has been quietly infecting hundreds of government computers across Europe and the United States in one of the most complex cyber espionage programs uncovered to date. Several security researchers and Western intelligence officers say they believe the malware, widely known as Turla, is the work of the Russian government and linked to the same software used to launch a massive breach on the U.S. military uncovered in 2008.

It was also linked to a previously known, massive global cyber spying operation dubbed Red October targeting diplomatic, military and nuclear research networks. Those assessments were based on analysis of tactics employed by hackers, along with technical indicators and the victims they targeted…