Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Ping Identity®, The Identity Security Company™, today opened registration for Cloud Identity Summit 2014, the annual gathering of the brightest minds in the security and identity industry. The 2014 event will be held at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, Calif. from July 19-22, 2014 with Radiant Logic as the Platinum Sponsor and Google as a Gold Sponsor.

The 2014 Theme – Modern Identity Revolution

Driven by tectonic shifts in cloud, mobile and API adoption, the world has dramatically changed in a short period of time. Reacting with timid modifications to existing strategy and infrastructure is ineffective in reaching and realizing the full benefits of a digital economy. A modern identity strategy promises to unlock the true potential of the cloud by enabling a world where users, devices and apps are trusted but controlled, connected and secure…

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Editorial Staff.

It used to be good enough for venture capitalists just to hand out money. Well, not anymore. Now they’re expected to offer up a suite of services and give their startups access to things like marketing coaches and technical advisors. The latest example of this arrives on Tuesday, with Battery Ventures announcing the hiring of Adrian Cockcroft as the company’s first “technology fellow.”

Cockcroft is a veteran of the technology industry, having worked at Sun Microsystems and EBay (EBAY) as a distinguished engineer and most recently as a cloud architect at Netflix (NFLX). His work at Netflix notably included overseeing much of the company’s move from running its own data centers to relying on Amazon.com’s (AMZN) cloud-computing infrastructure…

Grazed from Microsoft. Author: PR Announcement.

Microsoft Corp said it would buy cloud-based software maker Parature Inc, which helps businesses manage help desks and provide other customer support services. Parature’s software helps businesses provide automated customer service, manage online discussion boards and forums, and conduct online surveys.

The company’s customers include Ask.com, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, International Business Machines Corp and Saba Software Inc. Microsoft did not disclose the terms of the deal. The acquisition will boost Microsoft’s Dynamics unit, which makes business software and counts Mattress Firm Holding Corp, Pandora Media Inc and Nissan Motor Co as customers…

Grazed from NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Super Micro Computer, Inc., a global leader in high-performance, high-efficiency server, storage technology and green computing exhibits its latest server and workstation solutions optimized for extreme performance cloud and desktop gaming this week at CES 2014 in Las Vegas. Cloud computing has spread beyond the enterprise and Supermicro is geared up with the industry’s widest range of platforms to support this next revolution in on-demand gaming. Supermicro 1U, 2U and 4U/Tower server clusters certified with NVIDIA GRID™ cloud gaming technology deliver a highly scalable cloud gaming infrastructure for Gaming-as-a-Service (GaaS) providers and operators.

High performance GRID K520 enabled platforms deliver gamers the immersive 3D HD experience of dedicated consoles or high-end PCs. GRID K340 enabled platforms support higher densities of concurrent users for casual gaming applications. For hardcore PC gamers or that prefer maximum performance at their desktop, Supermicro also offers a server-grade gaming system (SYS-5038AD-T) and a wide range of GPU enabled SuperWorkstations…

Grazed from The Var Guy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

In a nod to the need for more efficient resource management for public and private cloud computing, IBM (IBM) has unveiled a new product for its OpenStack platforms. Called the Platform Resource Scheduler, the resource provides a virtualized programmable interface for automating the allocation of cloud resources.

IBM announced the Platform Resource Scheduler Jan. 6, billing it as "a dynamic resource management tool for the private and public OpenStack cloud, which automatically allocates the right resources to the right job, balances workload demand with infrastructure supply and ensures adherence to service level agreements."…

Grazed from MarketWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Datapipe, a global provider of managed services and infrastructure for outsourced IT and cloud computing, today announced the company has been named to the Gartner "Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting in Asia-Pacific" report. This Magic Quadrant helps enterprises choose managed hosting providers that can support their use cases and geographic requirements when migrating to the cloud.

A full copy of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting in Asia-Pacific can be accessed here. "Datapipe’s global reach, cloud, and managed hosting capabilities provide our clients with a trusted partner to plan, migrate and manage mission-critical IT applications," said Robb Allen, CEO of Datapipe. "Gartner’s evaluation highlights our unique ability to deliver a world-class service experience to the enterprise market in the Asia-Pacific region."…

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Jonathan Dolby.

CloudSigma, a public cloud IaaS provider with advanced hybrid hosting solutions, today announced that it has enhanced its solid-state drive (SSD) storage offering with highly-granular, affordable snapshot management technology to improve data protection and access in the cloud. CloudSigma’s Fully Integrated Snapshot Management Technology Grants Customers Seamless and Affordable Storage Management in the Cloud

Zurich, Switzerland – January 6, 2014 – CloudSigma, a public cloud IaaS provider with advanced hybrid hosting solutions, today announced that it has enhanced its solid-state drive (SSD) storage offering with highly-granular, affordable snapshot management technology to improve data protection and access in the cloud. Now, customers can seamlessly and cost-effectively incorporate enterprise storage strategies into their cloud infrastructure while meeting complex compute requirements…

Grazed from Cignix. Author: Clint Robertson.

Cloud computing is changing the way the world does business by allowing businesses and individuals to use and share files, applications and data over the Internet. Data can now be accessed anywhere with an Internet connection, reducing the need for companies to power and maintain their own servers. This is not only more convenient, but it also cuts technology and energy costs. Whether cloud computing is used for backing up files, updating software or replacing onsite data centers, switching to the cloud is a great way for your business to become “greener.” Here are three reasons cloud computing should be part of your business’ green agenda.

The Cloud is Paperless

One of the advantages of cloud computing is that it makes data more easily stored and shared. With mobile and desktop compatible applications, remote collaboration is easier than ever, and it minimizes the need for paper notes and handouts. The paper-making process puts extreme strain on the environment, and is the fourth-largest energy-consuming industry in the United States…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: CJ Arlotta.

The City of Boston publicly showed its support for Google (GOOG) by sharing the city’s experience with the company in a Google blog post this morning. Bill Oates, CIO for the city of Boston, said in the post that the city is continuing to "engage and connect with constituents using mobile technology and social media.

"As a tech-savvy city, we’re always looking for the best IT tools to help our government run smarter, innovate more effectively and provide better services for our citizens," he added. Oates said the city recently migrated 76,000 email accounts "from a collection of our premise-based systems, mostly Microsoft Exchange, to Google Apps."…

Grazed from NetworkComputing. Author: Joe Masters Emison.

This is the seventh part in a series of articles about creating my own IaaS performance benchmarking project. In the first part, I explained my methodology for testing instance types across major IaaS providers. I’ve run benchmarks for Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines, and Rackspace Cloud Servers. In this part, I look at SoftLayer, which was acquired by IBM last year. SoftLayer is unique among the IaaS providers I’m testing in that it has bare-metal (meaning not virtualized) pay-by-the-hour services that some industry observers think may give the company a significant edge.

As of today, there are six U.S. regions available for SoftLayer through RightScale (the cloud management service I’m using to run most of my benchmarks, as it gives me image parity): San Jose, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and three in Dallas (Dallas 1, Dallas 5, and Dallas 6). SoftLayer offers extremely configurable servers (far more so than the other major IaaS providers, which offer specific “instance types”), but RightScale has created five instance types for SoftLayer. I tested those, so I launched a total of 30 VMs through RightScale…