Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.

Toshiba Corporation (Tokyo: 6502), a world leader and innovator in pioneering high technology, and NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), a data, cloud and international communications leader within the NTT NTT +0.64% Group, announced on February 27 a multifaceted alliance under which Toshiba’s data-center and cloud-computing services will be provided to global customers by NTT Com’s Enterprise Cloud, a self-manageable, full-layer virtual private cloud, and data centers.

Services will be provided in North America and Asia from April, and then expanded to Europe thereafter.Toshiba, which has provided data-center and cloud-computing services primarily to domestic companies in Japan, will now use Enterprise Cloud to provide global-scale data-center and cloud-computing services that enable enterprise customers to expand and manage their operations within a common cloud network environment accessible from anywhere in the world…

Grazed from VaultNetworks. Author: Editorial Staff.

Slowly but surely Cloud Computing is growing in popularity. In fact, the Cloud is used internationally by multiple countries. Some countries are better than others for Cloud Computing, according to BSA. Countries that are the best for Cloud Computing provide above average data privacy, security protection, and development standards. On the other hand, the worst countries for Cloud Computing provide terrible data privacy, weak support for industry standards, and bad free-trade policies.

In addition to these countries, here are a few more that are great for cloud computing: France, United Kingdom, South Korea, Canada, and Italy. This infographic outlines the best and worst countries in order by excellent to good, and terrible to worst:

To view infographic, visit http://www.vaultnetworks.com/blog/2014/02/best-worst-cloud-computing/

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Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Mark Eisenberg.

Enterprise IT mentality demonstrates that a new technology is given only a brief period in which to prove a return on investment. Failure to do so incurs damage to its brand in various degrees. Typically, return on investment (ROI) is shown to be much more modest than originally hoped, and the brand simply fades. In some cases — such as computer-aided software engineering in the 1980s — the failure is so extreme that it is almost considered career-limiting to even mention the brand. So, how is the cloud brand doing?

The cloud brand has been a little different; the battle to prove its ROI more resembles a three-round boxing match than a single-leg race, with the cloud technology facing off against the market itself. The bell rang on the first round of cloud and it moved to the second in 2008, when Gartner included the then-nascent technology in the "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies." There was activity in the market prior to that, but in 2008, the spotlight was lit…

Grazed from ITBusinessNet. Author: PR Announcement.

Technology Business Research Inc.s (TBR) Cloud Professional Services Customer Report shows demand for cloud professional services continues to escalate, with more than 74% of enterprise clients, compared to 59% in 2011, purchasing or considering purchasing cloud computing services engaged with a cloud professional services vendor for assistance. Recently, clients professional services demands shifted, with a need for assistance in system integration and implementation taking the lead. TBR surveyed 900 end users of cloud professional services across North America, Europe and Asia to map vendor opportunity and customer and competitor landscapes for the report, which is one of three customer-facing research initiatives in TBRs cloud customer portfolio.

As the only study in the cloud computing market looking specifically at professional services, the Cloud Professional Services Customer Report provides an array of insights for professional services firms in addressing the changing needs of current and prospective customers, said Senior Analyst Ramunas Svarcas…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

Intronis, Inc., provider of world-class cloud backup solutions for the IT channel, today announced it has been recognized as one of this years Top 100 Cloud Computing Vendors and Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors by CRN. The honor marks the second year in a row that Intronis has been featured as a leading cloud innovator and channel-friendly storage vendor for todays IT channel partners.

The Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors slideshow is featured on CRN.com and commends Intronis for its on-demand recovery services and early market support of virtualized machines (VMs). In 2013, Intronis introduced its QuickSpin VM replication and restore technology. Offered as an integrated module within the Intronis software platform, QuickSpin provides turnkey backup and recovery support for VMware. It also enables channel partners to quickly create and update recovery VMs in a cluster, saving businesses time, money and downtime…

Research shows that, by 2017, spending on cloud computing services is expected to reach $235.1 billion. A report from consulting firm IHS Technology shows that this prediction is three times higher than the $78.2 billion spent in 2011.

Investment Breakdown

This estimate is one of the highest spending predictions to date, which invites the question of how that money will be spent. According to an article from InfoWorld, those funds will be used for infrastructure, application hosting and data analytics. Most of the spending will be put toward infrastructure, including the migration and computing related to enterprise-to-cloud storage. The use of public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds will see the biggest rise while private cloud growth is expected to spike in the next few years…

Grazed from IBTimes. Author: Christopher Zara.

The slogan “Amazon and you’re done” may have just taken on a whole new meaning — at least for enemies of the state. Privacy advocates and media watchdogs are challenging a contract between Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, calling it a potentially “ominous” convergence of mass surveillance and perpetual war.

In an online petition launched this month, the group RootsAction called on Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, to make a “legally binding” commitment to Amazon users that it won’t share customer data with the CIA. Following a lengthy legal battle, Amazon in October defeated IBM (NYSE:IBM) in a bid for a $600 million cloud computing contract. Under the 10-year deal, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, will build and operate a dedicated, private computer cloud for the agency…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Glenn Blake.

Experts predict that the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices will continue to drive innovations in cloud computing, paving the path for new applications geared toward the retail consumer. Mobile devices offer people the chance to use readily available tools for a wide variety of data and communications purposes.

While most Americans have become accustomed to using cell phones over the last 15 to 20 years, the expanded capabilities of hand-held devices increase the functionality of these gadgets exponentially. With suitable applications and providers, cloud computing options available for mobile devices will garner considerable appeal from users who have traditionally avoided high technology…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Rob Preston.

The irony of the storage industry is that as data volumes continue to soar and storage budgets grab a larger share of overall IT budgets, the system vendors positioned to profit from those trends are under intense financial pressure. The aggregate growth rate of storage vendors is flat to negative, as cheaper technology alternatives emerge and as some cash-strapped customers delay their storage purchasing decisions, in part to evaluate alternative models such as cloud, virtualization, and even open source.

NetApp, one of the industry’s leading vendors, is feeling that pressure. In its most recent quarter, the company’s revenue was relatively flat — down 1.2% from the year-earlier quarter to $1.61 billion — though its gross profit was up 3.9% to a very healthy $1 billion. In a wide-ranging interview just prior to NetApp’s third-quarter financial report, CEO Tom Georgens emphasized the company’s strengths as a "data management" vendor and integrator, that it’s not just a purveyor of commodity storage systems…

Grazed from CIO. Author: Kenneth Corbin.

For U.S. cloud computing companies that have long been fighting to defend the privacy protections involving data stored in their servers or passing over their networks, the ongoing revelations about the extent of the NSA’s surveillance activities could carry a huge price tag. For years, in markets such as Western Europe, cloud providers like Google and Microsoft have been trying to beat back concerns voiced by would-be customers — and stoked by competitors and governments — that the Patriot Act and other laws render data stored with American firms readily accessible to the U.S. government.

But the protectionist policies that some countries were pursuing — restricting cross-border data flows or requiring local hosting, for instance — had been a nuisance, but they didn’t seem pervasive enough to challenge U.S. hegemony in the cloud sector.  The equation began to change dramatically last June, when media outlets first began reporting on widespread electronic surveillance programs at the NSA, Daniel Castro, a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said Tuesday at a policy discussion on the fallout of the disclosures of former government contractor Edward Snowden…