Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Lucien Wynn.

Cloud computing is very much in vogue, as more and more businesses make use of cloud technologies. A major benefit of cloud computing is the cost savings it can deliver, along with the fact that cloud services can be easy to implement and are often scalable. An element of cloud computing which has gained traction in recent years is that of Software as a Service (SaaS). At its most basic level, SaaS is the provision of software hosted on the cloud, usually charged on a subscription basis (rather than as a one-off license fee). A major benefit of this for businesses is the fact that they only need to pay for what they use, so if their software requirements increase or indeed fall over time, they can adjust their subscription accordingly.

Although Software as a Service has existed in various forms for many years now (Salesforce.com, often cited as one of the first SaaS providers, was founded in 1999), it has only really entered the mainstream in the last few years. And its rise looks set to continue, with Gartner predicting that the global SaaS market could be worth over $22 billion by 2015, almost double what it was in 2011 ($12.3 billion). Evidence of the widespread use of SaaS is provided by North Bridge Venture Partners? annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey which shows that 63% of the organisations surveyed use SaaS…

Grazed from InformationAge. Author: Ben Rossi.

Analyst and research firm Forrester predicted in November 2013 that 10 trends would dominate the information technology landscape in 2014. Amongst them was the belief that IT will become an agile service broker and if it doesn?t it will simply fade away. This trend is occurring because many of the leading IT organisations are moving away from what it describes as being aligned IT in favour of empowered business technology practices.

This transformation will include some significant modifications to the software development lifecycle. Changes will also occur in the realms of managing and developing IT architecture, as well as impacting on solutions development in order to deliver mobile, cloud and big data solutions more readily than today…

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Mike Vizard.

When it comes to cloud computing, it?s actually some of the basic things, such as how to efficiently get data in an out of the cloud, that tend to hang up IT organizations more than complex issues, such as data governance. To make it easier to move files in and out of the cloud, Green Button has unfurled GreenButton WarpDrive, which leverages the GridFTP technology, which was developed under the auspices of the Open Grid Forum.

GreenButton CEO Scott Houston says GridFTP enables a file that needs to be transferred to be broken up in to multiple segments that can be sent in parallel. Once sent, the file can then be reconstituted on the receiving end by the cloud service provider. Initially available for the Microsoft Azure Cloud, Houston says GreenButton also plans to make this capability available for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud and any cloud service that supports the OpenStack cloud management framework…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Gregory Fisher.

If you have been following news in the tech industry at all lately, then you should probably be aware that Microsoft just released the latest version of Windows on October 18th, and may well already have a copy of it up and running on your machine. While some early adopters already had the buggy ?preview? version of 8.1 running on their machines, only now is the new operating system officially available in its finalized form, and so far the reviews have been positive.

One of the things that reviewers are praising about the new system is the heavy integration of the cloud into the very workings of this new Windows. As a feature, it?s incredibly useful for everyone from casual users to big businesses, and as an indication of the direction that things are heading it?s very telling and very interesting…

Grazed from JapanTimes. Author: Editorial Staff.

Sony Corp. will start distributing games for the PlayStation 4 via cloud computing technology this year, President Kazuo Hirai said Tuesday, revealing the electronics company?s focus on the entertainment business. In his speech on the opening day of the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Hirai said the streaming game service will begin late this month in the United States on a trial basis and be launched full scale this summer.

Sony will initially distribute games for its PlayStation 3 console as well the PS4, which was launched in North America, Europe, Latin America and other countries last year. The service will be offered at a fixed rate, the company said. Users of the streaming game service will be able to play games on devices that are connected to the Internet without downloading them. For example, someone playing a game using a PS4 in the living room can continue playing the game in the bedroom with their PS3, Sony said…

Grazed from Seagate. Author: Editorial Staff.

Organizations may seek more security from cloud storage solutions in 2014, due to concerns about surveillance and breaches. Features such as data encryption and hosting located in specific countries may become increasingly desirable. On top of that, companies will continue to seek secure, enterprise-grade file sharing and storage solutions that are appealing enough to discourage employees from relying on unsafe consume alternatives.

In an article for Computerworld, Jaikumar Vijayan predicted that 2014 would bring encryption to the forefront of cloud computing services. For example, vendors such as Microsoft and Google are already at work on encrypting data in transit and at rest. Google’s cloud encrypts data before it is recorded to storage. Microsoft’s cloud-based Outlook.com(cap?) email service, as well as its Office 365 and Windows Azure products, are also being ugpraded with new encryption features, including 2048-bit keys and Perfect Forward Secrecy in some cases…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Tom Nolle.

The explosion of interest in application componentization, component reuse and orchestration of workflows based on business process needs has stimulated broad adoption of service-oriented architecture principles. As businesses look more to cloud computing, they’re finding it necessary to evaluate their applications to optimize performance in a public, private or hybrid cloud. This means assessing workflows as a guide to component positioning, addressing horizontal scaling for cloud bursting and failover, and hybridizing SOA and representational state transfer (REST) to build elasticity as a layer on top of current SOA applications.

Anyone who uses SOA understands that inter-component information flows can create performance issues if components are divided across data centers in a cloud implementation. Some users have already been forced to consider the system-connection implications of workflows even inside their data centers. Any combination of SOA and the cloud demands that the architects involved review the impact of cloud connectivity and cloud server performance on the workflow and the application overall…

CloudCow Contributed Article.  Author: Eric Silver, senior contributor for Online Backup Magazine.

Public or private? Cloud industry experts have been going back and forth on this issue since the establishment of cloud computing. This has left individuals and businesses alike stranded and frequently questioning their choice, even after a decision is made. Even after a decade of data, you will find analysts who support both sides of the spectrum. Let’s put this debate to rest once and for all.

Security at a Risk

Public cloud companies quite literally shove the ‘128-bit SSL’ or ‘256-bit SSL’ encryption notion down potential customers’ throats. Fortunately for them, the overwhelming majority of clients do not understand encryption protocols. While your data is secure once it reaches the public cloud company’s data center(s), it is extremely vulnerable during the actual transfer process and at the pre-transfer process as well. On the other hand, private clouds can be set up and implemented within a corporation’s firewall allowing for optimal security. Additionally, you operate a personal data center within a private cloud setting thus eliminating the potential threat of another client accessing your information…

Grazed from Enterprise Networking Planet. Author: Jade Chao.

Numerous analysts, including IDC, predict strong continued growth for cloud computing in 2014 and beyond. And for the enterprise, the overall benefits of the cloud are almost beyond argument. Cloud computing offers flexibility and scalability beyond what many organizations can realistically expect out of on-prem data centers, as well as often significant cost savings. Price and mileage vary between different cloud providers, of course, as does performance. For cloud-based IP camera monitoring startup Sensr.net, the price, mileage, and performance of cloud host Linode proved just right.

The challenges

Sensr.net offers a cloud-based video monitoring platform that enables users to monitor, share, and store video feeds from their IP cameras. The company provides motion detection algorithms for more automated surveillance and can automatically alert users of activity in monitored areas. It also automatically stores the most recent 30 days of video for each customer, with still screen captures for quick review. And all this activity means a heavy incoming bandwidth load—70 million uploads per day, or about 2 TB daily, as Adam Beguelin, CEO of Sensr.net, told me…

Grazed from TheLawyer. Author: Wang Rui and Qiu Shaolin.

Cloud computing has become quite a hot topic for discussion over the past few years. However, although recent interest in cloud computing has increased, it is not a completely new type of service. For example, when you send an email through Gmail, or store pictures on social media websites, you are using cloud computing services.

In China, cloud computing has experienced fast and dynamic growth in recent years. The market value of China’s public cloud computing services for the year of 2012 increased by 73 per cent compared with 2011, and the estimated market value for 2013 is expected to reach ¥6.3bn. The growth of China’s cloud computing industry has aroused great interest among foreign service providers. In May 2013, Microsoft Corporation announced that it would add several thousand employees to its workforce in China as part of a long-term investment in the cloud computing market…