Grazed from Scoop.co.nz. Author: Editorial Staff.

What do IBM, Dell, HP, Oracle and SAP have in common? All are mature technology companies – the youngest is Dell formed in 1984 – and they all banking on cloud computing getting them out of the doldrums. There are a few things wrong with that idea.

First, it was cloud computing that got them into trouble in the first place. Hardware sales, particularly servers, fell as companies switched applications and processing to the cloud. Cloud hosted applications disrupt high-end software. It challenges high-margins, undermines the need for infrastructure and support than allows software giants to get away with huge costs.

Oracle, originally a software company but since buying Sun Microsystems with a large hardware business, is in a more nuanced position. It lost server sales to cloud computing while its software business is challenged by nimble, commoditised cloud-based apps. SAP faces just the app challenge…

Grazed from Intel. Author: Editorial Staff.

As Chris Peters recently wrote in his blog, Business Innovation – Opportunities and Trends for 2014, “cloud computing is here to stay.” It seems indisputable that as business becomes more mobile and IT becomes more decentralized, cloud technology will enable the majority of business initiatives.

Intel and Cisco recently teamed up to survey 4,226 IT leaders on the ways cloud technologies were impacting their respective IT organizations. The result was a comprehensive, multi-industry view of the cloud. While IT leaders overwhelmingly agreed that the cloud was a positive presence in their operations, it was also clear that there is no one-size-fits-all cloud solution…

Grazed from ProgrammableWeb. Author: Michael Vizard.

The emergence of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings as a foundation to build applications in a way that abstracts traditional middleware is proving to be a boon for developers in the age of the cloud. The challenge is that there is no such thing as a single cloud. The cloud actually consists of a mix of programmable platforms that lie both inside and out of the traditional enterprise.

Apprenda wants to make it easier to invoke those cloud resources with the inclusion of an API that allows developers to dynamically scale resources in response to user traffic demands or a specific policy requirement within the PaaS environment. As a (PaaS) offering that can be deployed on premise or in the cloud, Rakesh Malhotra, vice president of product for Apprenda, says version 5.0 of the company’s namesakes PaaS offering is the first PaaS environment that provides an API through which developers can dynamically control how IT resources are consumed across a hybrid cloud computing environment…

Grazed from FedTechMagazine. Author: Jimmy Daly.

Cloud computing is no longer an option for federal agencies — it’s a must. Many agencies have moved their core IT to the cloud, and the rest are either in progress or in search of the right solution. Cloud computing is one of just a few technologies that is so powerful and beneficial that the government has no choice but to adopt it.

Like email and mobility before it, cloud computing is forcing government IT leaders to make hard choices about the future of their agencies. According to IDC, the government will be spending $7.7 billion on cloud computing by 2017. MeriTalk’s Cloud Computing Exchange recently released the Cloud First Consumer Guide, the result of interviews with 15 federal IT leaders and several years of monitoring cloud-computing trends…

Grazed from Microsoft. Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Satya Nadella as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors effective immediately. Nadella previously held the position of Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group.

“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” said Bill Gates, Microsoft’s Founder and Member of the Board of Directors. “Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.” …

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Offering Public or private cloud operators greater choice and flexibility in the provisioning and management of enterprise applications, MPSTOR today announced a new VMware VMDK version of its Orkestra™ Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform based on the open-source operating system OpenStack™.

As an innovative and award-winning leading developer of storage and cloud management software products, MPSTOR developed the Orkestra cloud management platform to make datacenter infrastructure invisible, programmable and immediately available to end users, allowing them to self-serve the exact quantity and quality of data storage, networking and computing resources required for their applications…

Grazed from Arista. Author: PR Announcement.

Arista Networks, Inc. today announced the crossing of another major milestone, shipping its two millionth, high speed, 10/40/100Gb Ethernet port for data center and cloud applications. This is being fueled by the increased acceptance of cloud computing and services, causing significant growth since the internet boom of the 1990s.

“We are pleased with the migration to modern data center and cloud platforms from legacy networks. This is providing significant opportunity for Arista’s disruptive innovations,” stated Jayshree Ullal, president and CEO at Arista Networks. “Arista EOS, coupled with advanced platforms, demonstrates our unwavering commitment to customers towards open standards and software defined networks (SDN).”…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

For leading cloud server provider Infinitely Virtual (www.infinitelyvirtual.com), 2014 is getting off to a rewarding start. The company earned Top #10 rankings in two categories in the January 2014 Web Host Awards – Best Cloud Computing Provider and Fastest Growing Provider. The accolades follow on the heels of Infinitely Virtual’s finalist status in the 2013-2014 Cloud Awards Program – again in two categories, Best Cloud Hosting Provider and Best Cloud Reseller/Reseller Program.

“While we don’t develop our products and services expressly to garner awards, it’s gratifying when the industry recognizes that our way of doing business is worthy of this kind of attention,” said Adam Stern, founder and CEO, Infinitely Virtual. “In every solution we offer, we think of the real-world issues that confront small and midsize businesses as they migrate to the cloud. In our view, that partnership mentality is behind our success in the market.”…

Grazed from EFYTimes. Author: Editorial Staff.

As organizations look to consolidate their existing data centers and shift more of their workloads to the cloud, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that this trend has helped fuel the growing momentum for the IBM PureSystems family of expert integrated systems, which have now shipped more than 10,000 units through the 4th Quarter of 2013.

Another aspect of this trend is that as more organizations embrace cloud computing, they are looking to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to help them quickly develop and deploy cloud based services in a more secure and economical way. These MSPs – many in key regions such as India, Brazil and China – are increasingly turning to IBM PureSystems over other vendors’ offerings in order to transform their data centers and provide the IT infrastructure that meets the needs of their clients…

Grazed from Datamation. Author: Editorial Staff.

Due to the increasing importance of virtualization and cloud computing in the enterprise, the Software Defined Data Center, or Virtual Data Center, is gaining momentum. Once applications are separated from underlying hardware, it makes sense to push the concept further. And once application assets reside in a nebulous cloud that may be difficult for IT to gain visibility into, let alone maintain and manage, ideas like Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC) start to make a quite a bit of sense. To date, the only Software-Defined market with any real traction is for Software Defined Networking products. A 2012 study by IDC predicted that SDN spending would reach $360 million in 2013, expanding to $3.7 billion by 2016.

Analyst forecasts aren’t the only way to measure the potential of SDN, though. In 2012, VMware acquired SDN startup Nicira for $1.26 billion. Brocade, Cisco, and Juniper followed suit by acquiring Vyatta, Cariden, and Contrail, respectively. Moreover, VCs are pouring serious money into this sector, heavily financing such startups as Affirmed Networks ($103 million raised to date), Big Switch Networks ($45 million), and Plexxi ($48 million)…