Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

A survey from Capita IT Services has revealed that CIOs see cloud computing as a key enabler to business innovation, yet boardrooms are "nervous" places where execs have to convince them cloud adoption is the way forward. The research, a combination of roundtable sessions and surveys featuring nearly 150 CIOs, found some interesting points regarding cloud adoption. More than three in five (61%) believe that improving the company’s innovation is now one of their highest priorities, with a further one in five (20%) believing it to be a low priority.

Not surprisingly, the report discusses the shift of CIO from chief information to chief innovation officer. "The ‘C’ in CIO now represents communication, collaboration, change; ‘I’ represents integration, interfaces, investment; and ‘O’ means optimisation, organisation and operations," the report trumpets…

Grazed from ComputerWorldUK. Author: Editorial Staff.

Every year Forrester publishes our overall cloud computing predictions which occasionally includes one or two private cloud predictions. With current private cloud self-reported adoption at 33% and 55% prioritising building an internal private cloud in 2014, we thought it was time to create a report that focuses just on this deployment type.

This year we published a separate report that features our private cloud predictions across pricate cloud management and infrastructure. The report covers the full descriptions and what I&O professionals should do about it. I covered the management predictions, while my colleague Rich Fichera, covered the infrastructure trends. This year we predict:…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Ashish Dhawan.

2013 saw the elevation of cloud computing as fundamental to business strategy. IT leaders now need to rethink the role of the network to deliver on the promise of the cloud. As enterprises begin to realize the benefits of the cloud, and as deployment and orchestration systems such as OpenStack and CloudStack mature, managing data centers will be about managing cloud workflows.

Both enterprises and service providers are looking to the cloud to help them move their businesses forward. For enterprises the cloud makes workloads and applications more dynamic, but before they can take advantage of this benefit they need an infrastructure which is optimized for private and public cloud services. Service providers, be they the traditional network service providers or cloud service providers, need a quick way to deliver new services and improve the time-to-revenue…

Grazed from Whatech. Author: Editorial Staff.

According to Nick Koukoulas, managing director of BSI incorporating NCSI, both users and providers of cloud-based services have been asking for independent, technology-neutral certification to help them make more informed decisions about the services they purchase and use. He said that STAR Certification would provide organisations and consumers with a clear benchmark on which to evaluate the performance of a cloud service provider.

The CSA’s STAR Certification combines assessment for conformance to the well-established ISO/IEC 27001:2005 management system standard and the CSA’s CSA Cloud Control Matrix, a specified set of criteria that measures the capability levels of the cloud service…

Grazed from PRNewsWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Vaultas Companies (www.vaultas.com), a premier provider of collaborative and vendor / carrier neutral colocation data centers in the Upper Midwest, today announced the Grand Opening of its newest Tier III data center located in the historic Blatz Brewery Complex in downtown Milwaukee. The new 10,000 Sq. Ft. facility will meet a growing need in the region for server and data colocation, primary and backup data center, data storage, cloud computing services and application hosting.

"Now more than ever, it is critical for companies to find affordable solutions to housing and protecting the data that drives their business," said Vaultas president, John Unger. "We are excited to bring our IT vendor supported, flexible, scalable data center and cloud computing solutions to southeastern Wisconsin."…

Grazed from Forbes.  Author: Louis Columbus.

The five highest performing cloud computing stocks year-to-date in the Cloud Computing Index  are Qualys QLYS +5.71% (NASDAQ:QYLS), Juniper Networks JNPR +0.89% (NYSE:JNPR), Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), F5 Networks FFIV +1.11% (NASDAQ: FFIV) and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)

A $10K investment in Qualys on January 2^nd of this year is worth $12,253 and $10K invested in F5 Networks is worth $12,069 as of market close yesterday.   IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP share prices are included for comparison.  Qualys continues to be one of the highest-performing stocks in the index.  They specialize in cloud-based compliance and security solutions that enable enterprises to identify security risks to IT infrastructures and protect IT systems from cyber-attacks…

Grazed from TechTarget.  Author: John Treadway.

DevOps is an exciting and far-reaching shift in IT delivery. The promises are tempting: radically higher productivity, lower cost and more reliable systems.  So I guess it’s finally time for your IT organization to get on the development-operations (DevOps) bandwagon, right? Everybody’s doing it, so don’t delay. The big question isn’t whether, but how and where do you start?

First, go out and hire some DevOps people. Wait, wait — DevOps isn’t a job.  Okay, so you should create a DevOps group or department, right? A great team of people you can train up on DevOps led by a director of DevOps. Hold on! DevOps isn’t a department or function either…

Datadog, the SaaS-based monitoring and data analytics platform that provides a unified view of IT infrastructure today announced that it has raised $15 million in a Series B round led by OpenView Venture Partners, with follow-on investments from Index Ventures, RTP Ventures, Amplify Partners, IA Ventures and Contour Ventures. Dev Ittycheria, OpenView’s Managing Director and former Founder and CEO of BladeLogic, will join the company’s board of directors.

Datadog will use the latest financing to accelerate the development of its next-generation monitoring platform for highly scalable cloud infrastructure. The company will also be aggressively growing its engineering division and expanding its sales and marketing teams in New York and Boston to meet the increasing market demand.

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

IBM today announced it is further expanding its operations across Africa with the opening of two new IBM Innovation Centers in Lagos, Nigeria and Casablanca, Morocco. These new centers aim to spur local growth and fuel an ecosystem of development and entrepreneurship around Big Data and Analytics and cloud computing in the region.

Approximately one in every two medium to large businesses in both South Africa and Kenya already use the cloud. In Nigeria, cloud usage is expected to more than double to 80 percent of businesses by the end of next year. At the same time, organizations around Africa are looking for ways to improve their analytics skills and more accurately tap into the data being produced by mobile devices and tablets – and, better anticipate the needs of their customers by delivering improved services…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Chris Patterson.

As businesses look to leverage cloud technology to drive growth, many times the question IT leaders within the company ask is, “Where do I start? What part of my infrastructure should I move into the cloud first?” IT leaders must pick a place to begin with cloud adoption. The decision becomes easier when teams focus on incremental adoption, starting with small, low-risk applications that can be easily tested and improved through an iterative approach before fully launching. Here are some best practices businesses should consider when getting started with cloud technology.

Identify the true problem and define a solution

The most effective method for getting started with cloud adoption is to identify the greatest pain point in a company’s IT ecosystem. The cloud solution should be targeted and architected to ease that pain point. Often times identifying the biggest IT challenge requires a deep dive into the business and its IT systems. For example, NaviSite recently worked with a company in Syracuse, N.Y. to implement a technology solution to help solve its business challenges. The company’s IT team perceived its infrastructure as the biggest challenge, and was eager to deploy a full Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution…